#340 - Ambitions like ribbons worn bright on my sleeves...

[reileen]

Setlist:

1. Bacchanalia
2. Triskaidekaphobia
3. Wasted
4. Cold
5. Almost
6. Sphinx
7. Cynthia's Lullaby No Longer Yours Truly
8. Eidolon
9. Gospel of the Shadow of Nobody

No, you're not imagining that strikethrough - I'd intended to play "Cynthia's Lullaby" but messed it up beyond compare within the first few measures because I'd suddenly forgotten how to play it, so I took a chance with "No Longer Yours Truly" (which I think I might just change to "Written Letter #2"...) and I think I did pretty well. I fudged the opening of "Almost" and some of the transitions of "Wasted" that I hadn't yet fully figured out, but all in all I think I did pretty well in performing, both vocally and instrumentally.

The thing that failed, though, was that I got barely any audience feedback at all. If it weren't for the fact that I invited some of my friends along (thank you, bluemaiden88, Melissa, and Pierre) I wouldn't have gotten any applause or acknowledgment that I was performing. This isn't the first time I've experienced audience apathy, but usually that's towards the end of the night, not the beginning. True, I did get two guys telling me afterwards that they thought I was good, and I had a high school girl with her friends take a picture of me as I was performing (?!), but...no applause. I used to think that I'd feel more comfortable if people weren't paying too much attention to me, but mostly I just feel invisible and like I'm not supposed to be performing.

Which, well, I wasn't supposed to be performing today, actually, according to the people at Borders - someone probably forgot to enter me into the records or something, because my name wasn't on the performance list despite me emailing back and forth with the performance manager at Borders and him saying he'd write me up for 10/16. But they let me stay anyway. Because of that and the other thing I just mentioned about about no audience feedback, though, I didn't feel bad for leaving after just that one set, even though that set was probably only half an hour long.

I've probably outgrown Borders, I think. Time to move on to greener pastures and start getting into venues where people actually go to listen to music. (That way, if there's no applause, I'll know for damn certain my music is crap.) The next destination on my list is Ashbary's Coffeehouse, which...is going to be a pain to be going to for a number of reasons, but I guess I just have to put up with it if I want to get anywhere decent with performing my music.

On the bright side, I did get enough tip money tonight to pay for a movie ticket - I might go see Zombieland tomorrow with two friends of mine from college.

Comments

[vyctori.livejournal.com]

Aww, man, that fails. What a bad note to end on, Borders-wise (and please pardon the pun). That would be so weird and awkward not to get applause--that's only ever happened to me in churches, and that's disconcerting enough. D:

Here's hoping Ashbary's Coffeehouse works out much better for you.