Rocking Hotel Chelsea on a Tuesday night. Photo by Kat.
Been Doing More Shows Lately, Huh?
I have been doing more live shows in recent months. Yes, this is a good thing. I mean, for me, performing more than once a month is more than usual, compared to the past couple of years. No, I don't want to do an overabundance of shows as I did for a long time where I'd do multiple Showa every week, but I've enjoyed this recent span of more frequent performances.
What Else Has Been Going On?
Like, really not a lot. I'd love to say I'm two weeks late on this report because I was hang gliding, or mountain climbing, or doing secret missions for the CIA, or saving children, or something else that is noble and/or cool. But it's just been work and normal life stuff.
That Show, Though?
The show went just fine. I will say, I was a bit concerned when we started to an audience of like... three. But as usual in SL and other shows, as the show went on, more people arrived, and by the time we were a couple of songs in, we had a good little crowd.
I've never connected the size of my crowd to whether or not it was a good show. I've had huge crowds and done awful shows. The point is, did I play well, and were the people there having fn? Then it was good. End of story. Photo by Kat.
Some of that was due to being down parts of our respective teams, with my great manager Maali Beck having to miss the show, as did Hotel Chelsea's hostess A fiya Grimbaker, leaving me and Chelsea manager Shyla todo all the spamming to get folks there. It's not the end of the world, obviously, and frankly I am always clear to people that real life needs and responsibilities take precedence over SL music shows on a 100% basis.
And as I said, it ended up being fine. The songs went particularly well; I'd made it a point to pull out several songs that hadn't made their want onstage with me in a long time... years, in a couple of cases. The folks who were there really seemed to dig the set, which is all I ask for.
Oh, and one other note. I learned this one from Max Kleene probably a decade ago or more. It's always helpful, if you're playing a venue and there's someone on directly after you, to try and clear the stage for your last tune, especially if you're pushing your show right to the very moment they're going on. It's easy to do; just take down your tip jar or any other stage decor you have up, and do your last tune in the audience. That way, the next performer has time to get set up to start their set on time. It's just common courtesy, and I do try and do that every time someone is up after me.
Try to get in the habit of getting off the stage and pulling down your tip jar before doing your final song. It's helpful for everyone. Photo by Kat.
Best bet... take a look at the time before you're last song, and if there's any doubt that you're not going to be completely off that stage at the exact top of the hour, get your ass down now. I should add that most SL musicians are very cool people and wouldn't eat into the next show intentionally. It's just that a good number of them don't have a ton of performing experience, and are very focused on doing their own show, which I fully get.
Hotel Chelsea set list...
Northern Sky (Nick Drake)
If It Makes You Happy (Sheryl Crow)
The Crystal Ship (The Doors)
Blew The Dust Away (They Stole My Crayon)
Mother (Pink Floyd)
Pretty Pimpin (Kurt Vile)
Hannah Sun (Lomelda)
Either Way (Wilco)
Daniel (Elton John)
A Day In The Life (Beatles)
Swirl (Charlie Martin)
Moonage Daydream (David Bowie)
Huge thanks to everyone who came out to this show, with extra spicy thanks to the following who helped support it!
Trouble Streeter, Tami Meredith, CossetteAlarie Resident, Corwyn Allen, my terrific manager Maali Beck, Hotel Chelsea manager Shyla the Super Gecko, and Chelsea's great staff.
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