{"id":5,"date":"2008-12-16T19:37:42","date_gmt":"2008-12-17T03:37:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amberbird.com\/blog\/?p=5"},"modified":"2008-12-16T19:43:47","modified_gmt":"2008-12-17T03:43:47","slug":"first-gig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amberbird.com\/blog\/2008\/12\/16\/first-gig\/","title":{"rendered":"first gig"},"content":{"rendered":"

taking a break from pre-history to share some tidbits about modern history. about the first varnish gig, which was my first gig ever.<\/p>\n

i went into my first gig with a modest set of goals:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. don’t leave the stage to pee during the set. (i had been fending off illness and drinking even more than my usual loads of water\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.this was a very challenging goal to meet.)<\/li>\n
  2. don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let down my best friend. he had gotten us the gig and i didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want him to regret it. secretly, i wanted to do more than not embarrass him; i wanted to make him proud and make him like me more and want to get us more gigs.<\/li>\n
  3. oh, and it would be nice if i weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t totally mortified with our performance. (i am really self-critical, so that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a joke.)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    i also went into that gig knowing:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. we had some great songs.<\/li>\n
    2. i was a good lyricist.<\/li>\n
    3. i was a good performer.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      and here is how this all came together:<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. all goals achieved! i am pretty sure i grinned like a complete idiot when the best friend told me we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d done really well. good thing there were no cameras.<\/li>\n
      2. the monitors were really good, so i could hear myself really clearly. and people who were not drunk, were not there for varnish, and were not hitting on me told me i had an amazing voice. which means i could finally add to my list of things i knew that i was a good singer.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        my friend celeste, who ran the video camera (i told you i\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d mention you by name, missy) and has always felt free to give loads of feedback on the efforts i make at music, told me that she saw when i started to believe. and that everything got better then.<\/p>\n

        so the most important thing i got from that, aside from popping my gig cherry, was belief in myself as a singer. leaving me with a burning need to make sure that the boys in the band believed in themselves and that my friends in other bands believed in themselves. because as awesome as their performances were, i had now learned that believing in yourself (and i don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean having some cocky ego trip, because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s usually rooted in insecurity) lets you do a better job and enjoy what you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re doing more.<\/p>\n

        and maybe that seems like a very obvious thing to you, but i gotta take my enlightenment where i can get it. even if it sounds like a cheesy greeting card.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        taking a break from pre-history to share some tidbits about modern history. about the first varnish gig, which was my first gig ever. i went into my first gig with a modest set of goals: don’t leave the stage to pee during the set. (i had been fending off illness and drinking even more than my usual loads of water\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.this was a very challenging goal to meet.) don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let down my best friend. he had gotten us the gig and i didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want him to regret it. secretly, i wanted to do more than not embarrass him; i wanted to make him proud and make him like me more and want to get us more gigs. oh, and it would be nice if i weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t totally mortified with our performance. (i am really self-critical, so that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a joke.) i also went into that gig knowing: we had some great songs. i was a good lyricist. i was a good performer. and here is how this all came together: all goals achieved! i am pretty sure i grinned like a complete idiot when the best friend told me we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d done really well. good thing there were no cameras. the monitors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-varnish"],"yoast_head":"\nfirst gig - Amber Bird | Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amberbird.com\/blog\/2008\/12\/16\/first-gig\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"first gig - Amber Bird | Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"taking a break from pre-history to share some tidbits about modern history. about the first varnish gig, which was my first gig ever. i went into my first gig with a modest set of goals: don’t leave the stage to pee during the set. 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