And we’re nervous. Being nervous is always part of it. I’ve been playing music in front of people for some 15 years now, more often than not to an audience of 5 or less people. Because somehow I’ve never known how to get people to want to come to shows. Nor, if I’m honest, have I ever tried very hard. But even when the only person watching is a good friend, it’s nerve-wracking. What right have we to make loud noises? Why are we the performers, when our friends are just as brilliant or more so? What right do we have to say we should be listened to?

    None of the questions have answers, and it doesn’t matter. We can’t not make music, or we’d become terminally depressed or drink ourselves to death. When we play music regularly on the other hand we’re pretty happy people all in all. But just playing music for ourselves isn’t enough-- we need to share it with others. So here we are, playing with other bands we admire (hi Bogs!) at a cozy neighborhood bar. Which in theory is all we want out of this life: good music, a chance to play for friends, a pint of beer.

    Still I’m nervous.

    After all this time I still don’t really understand it, but there it is. I also don’t know why sometimes the nervousness adds up to slippery stiff fingers that clunk across the chords and voices that crack and slide off pitch-- and sometimes the nervousness makes us bold and strong and graceful and energetic. Sometimes one, sometimes the other. We don’t understand it, and i suspect nobody else does either. Performing is a strange thing.

    We’re playing a set of 10 songs. A couple of them are a year or more old-- a couple more are about six months old and have been played in public once or twice. The others are brand new, and unlike everything we’ve done before. We’re playing folk-rock now, not quiet folk-drones; we’re embracing some country and folk tropes that we used to consciously avoid; we’re writing songs with a very different approach (some of them are very fast, some are very elaborate-- some are oddly simple), and performing them with a different, very different, energy.

    What does it mean? Will we be brilliant or stupid? Will there be 25 people or 5? Will they like us or not? Will we throw out our backs carrying the amps? Will we feel like we did our ideas justice? Will we make a beautiful noise that we’ll remember as a moment of rightness always? Or come home a little more heartbroken than before?

    Now that i’ve said more than enough, it’s time to pack up the instruments and lug them to the door.