First Gig Jitters...

I haven't experienced first gig jitters in a while. Not since I joined Girl 13 actually, and to be fair, the my first gig with the band was the biggest of the bands life at that point. Played at the Ponty Muni hall and actually full of people, it scared me a little. The rest of the band took it in their stride, and within ten minutes of actually being there I'd calmed down. This was all stuff they'd seen before, and to be fair, so had I so it was just another day at the office. They were calm because they'd done it all before.

Kalmar is a totally different proposition. We are untested as a live band. I know that that is a totally academic point; the three of us have played as a collective before, and we were the ones that worked the best together; that's why the band was born in the first place. I'm totally sure that this will not prove to be anything of a different experience from gigging with Girl 13, except that there will probably be fewer or no fights, and we'll actually spend the evening in each others company rather than pissing off and being nowhere to be found for ten minutes.

But the point remains. This is a different band, following a different blueprint for success, necessarily so because Girl 13's obviously didn't work. R.I.P and all that, sad to see the good old days gone and everything, but hey... Kalmar is such an awesome band to be in. It's fun, we challenge each other, we're on the same page, and we're writing good songs that are getting more and more complex every time we step into the practice room. We're in the honeymoon stage of band formation where we're writing on average two new songs every week (we timed our whole catalogue of material today. It clocks in at an hour and a quarter). This is what worries me.

We have our grand designs in the practice room, but will it all fall apart on stage? Will we play everything note perfect but look wooden and gauche? Will we be completely uncharismatic? Will we find that the music we're playing only works in the practice room and we're not competent enough musicians to do it live? Will I severely fuck up a song that Mike and Coran have got down to a T? (And will we never ever be welcome in the lovely pub to the left here ever again? Yes, this is where the battle begins in earnest).

These ladies and gentlemen are the pre-gig jitters. Everything is still new enough to be scary, and it's doubly scary because we have so much forward momentum now that it would probably take more effort to slow the whole process or stop it than it would to just keep moving in the direction we're going. We've invested so much time and effort in being the best we can be as musicians and delivering music we believe in heart and soul that of course we can't help but be scared.

When next Thursday arrives, we'll have our answers. We'll have a played a kickass gig and we'll bed the ghosts of failure and Girl 13 forever. Till then, I'll just sit here and quietly worry and practice furiously the tougher parts of the songs we'll be debuting to the City that have been wondering what the boys in the band have been up to.