Get To The Underside: Rock Show

I’ve got crickets under my skin today—my band, The Famous Graves is playing out tonight. It doesn’t matter how many times we do it, I still get nervous. It’s not a debilitating nervousness, but it sure does make me feel skittery and anxious all day as if I’ve been run through the dryer and now I have all this pointy fuzzy static energy sticking out all over the place. And really my biggest “nervy” agitator is not Will I look silly? or Will I nail that big growly scream at the end of Something Wicked? but it’s: Will anyone come?

I’m going to spend my afternoon alone with my cricket-skin warming up, stretching out and meditating on Boudica. (Boudica was the Celtic/Iceni Warrior Queen turned goddess of that gave the Romans a run for their money.) I am fascinated by her story and its many variations both those situated in historical fact and those that are product of legend. Some versions claim that Boudica poisoned herself to escape capture while others say she slit her throat and drove her chariot straight into battle determined to die standing. (I prefer the later version—so striking!) I try to evoke her bezerker spirit and imagine her wild hair in a manic spray behind her and fiery eyes that would burn a hole in your chest.

I think about going on stage as going into battle and applying my cat-eye-liner as putting on war paint. I’ve tried to explain to people over and over that I am not a singer really, I’m a vocalist. Our last show a group of people walked away in horror as they realized we weren’t going to be a pop band. From the get go this project has not been about being pretty, or cute, or f***able, or famous or demure. It’s about getting up there and being an Amazon. That’s right, all five-feet-four-inches of me is going to turn inside out while I dig down to my kidneys and pull up something insane to snarl into that mic. The Great Blues Goddess Janis Jopin (my personal hero) said that [singing] is not about being pretty, it’s about getting to the underside, the ugly side and that is where it means something. So ends the Gospel of Janis.

Get to the underside.
That’s my mantra today.

What do you do to get rid of nerves or prepare yourself for something big?

Image of The Famous Graves by Rick Penaloza