Your show isn’t good enough. For who? For you.
You wonder if the show is going to be good as you’re walking on stage. That’s a bad time to be wondering.
You spend $50k on the record and $500 on show prep. Your show isn’t good enough. To actually get closer to your potential, you’ll have to be risky and risky might get you laughed at so it’s safer to do what most acts do…which is to do the least amount of work possible to make a show that won’t get laughed at, but will never be cried over and always forgotten.
You had that amazing show, the one that comes to mind and yet doing that again seems elusive and ultimately out of your control. See I think you are your best show much more than you are your worst show.
You can be an artist who creates a show that is 94/100 every night. 5 for the part that no one can control and 1 for the way you pushed yourself that didn’t work perfectly. But tell me really, do you think you have a 94? If you don’t, what are you going to do about it? Sit on the bus and hope? Wonder?
Your show gets better by putting your best foot forward. By telling your fear and insecurity to come with you and watch you work. Your uncomfortableness is a guide post of the right path. Your show isn’t good enough but it can be if you’re willing to work to make it good enough.
If you’re ready, let’s go.
It’s a hard choice to make because chances are in your career there’s not a pattern of making a great show.
Your patterns have been established and show creation isn’t one of them. There’s a pattern of songwriting, releasing records, doing photos, hiring pr, but barely a trace of building a show. So it feels like a daunting big risky undertaking. The hard part is breaking up your patterns to implement a new pattern into the overall cycle. Show creation.
And the byproduct is infinitely valuable. You will no longer wonder if you’re going to have a good show. You already have one. Better people want to work with better shows. People enjoy better shows more. People pay more money year after year for better shows. You walk off stage with full awareness of what you delivered and who you delivered it to. Better shows equal better days. And better days equal a better life.
So again, if you’re ready, let’s go.
The only way to change and enhance your answer for ‘is my show good enough?’ is to try something new. And I’m here to tell you the secret that isn’t a secret: by showing up and working on it on purpose. Showing up by yourself, with a band, with production, with lights, with video screens, with a big rehearsal space, or your mother’s basement. You need to show up and do this work if you want a better answer to the question.
And when you show up and insist on better (without being an evil dictator), the band will want better and the production will want better, the videos will want better and all of that will then come back and cause you to keep raising the bar and then the cycle kicks in all over again. Everyone pushing for their best work instead of what will merely work.
We’re going to try this new way. It’s not a guarantee but an invitation to better. You’ve done it the old way and it’s not good enough. The new way is to start at the beginning and build, every brick, on purpose, on behalf of the people you’re serving.
One more time, if you’re ready, let’s go.
If you need a guide, drop me a message, maybe we’ll be a good fit.
***I’m working on a long form, I dare say a book that dives deeper into these ideas. But for now feel free to share this post with anyone who might appreciate it.
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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabe@gabethebassplayer.com