Thank you, Sarah.

Played the Fillmore poster room again last night. I played with Alex, who has been rocking my world with sweet bass lines, sage advice and endless patience with my noobness. He brought his standup bass and we did a set of mostly ballads (most of the piano based songs seem to be slower and less rock than the guitar stuff, and the Fillmore specifically requested I play a loungey-piano thing. They were over the singer-songwriter guitar schtuff, so’s I’s told)

Anyway, things went alright. I choked a few lines and never really felt “dropped in”. It was a drinking crowd (Big Head Todd & the Monsters were the headliner, and it was a 70% full night) and I was having a hard time reading/reaching the crowd. Of course, in the poster room, it’s a cafe and people generally talk a lot in there. But during the second set, for the entire set, not one person applauded. It really felt like I was up there going through the paces for the sake of going through the paces. Literally, 30 minutes, not one acknowledgement from the 60-70 people who were there.

As a performer, I feel like I want to interact with or touch or move the people I’m playing for. So it was disheartening to go an entire set and feel ignored. But a minute or so after our last tune, a woman named Sarah came up and asked what our name was and what the last song was. And then she asked about the third to last song. I was totally blown away – someone was not only listening, but paying attention.

And her coming up to me (in the context of my experience of the last set) was yet another reminder of the lesson I keep learning and forgetting, learning and forgetting- I’m not doing this to be popular or liked. I’m not really sold on the idea of being an “entertainer” – I’m more interested in being an “inspirer” and/or a “mover” who can also make you shake it.

I’m doing this to reach people, and if it’s only one person that I speak to, then job done. I keep getting caught up in the idea that the only way my message/music is validated is through the rapt attention of an audience. I have to learn to remember that I’m playing for the Sarah’s, the open ears and hearts hidden in the sea of people and not for the crowd as a whole. Someday, the Sarah ratio of my audiences will invert, and I’ll be playing to people who expect me and want me to be performing for them. Until then, I have to always remember Sarah – to look for her or to know that she’s out there in the room somewhere, listening.