When terror turns to transcending.
Pre-show, I sit in an Atlanta diner reflecting a little on how I got here.
May 4, Atlanta, GA
Nothing says tour like a black coffee at a diner in a city far from home, with people I’ve never met, in my clothes from yesterday and a tangled mop of bed-hair culminated from a sleepless night in a rocking tour bunk.
I am disheveled but elevated from all the new energy around me. Yesterday we were in Charlotte, today we’re in Atlanta, tomorrow we’ll be in St Petersburg, Florida. Each night I feel more and more in my own skin, more fluid in my performance, more connected to my audience and less to my nerves. These days I’m channeling the fuel of anxiety into a focused through-line of presence and intention. My devotion and gratitude to music has flooded back into my body and instead of moving to the internal rhythms of my songs, the music and pulse seems to be moving through me. Each night I let go a little more and follow the vibrations that come forth, trusting their ability to resonate deep inside people. I facilitate their birth, then they take me to novel planes.
Last night I played under a huge sky, bulging with mystery. I love to sing for the sky. My eyes draw upward to what we sometimes call The Heavens and I “give beauty back, back, back to beauty’s self and beauty’s giver.”
(This evocative quote is taken from Gerard Manley Hopkin’s poem, “The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo” which was the inspiration for my second album titled The Golden Echo.)
These crowds are making space for my music in such a generous, genuine way. I could almost feel hearts opening in real time to my war cries. The songs I’m playing on this tour span through grief, loss, fear, uncertainty and eventual freedom and joy. As I stand alone on these huge stages, I’m feeling a new kind of courage emerge - it’s one I’ve been searching for for months.
I move through 11 songs including “Human,” “Goldmine,” “Different Story,” “Settle Down” and some people sing along while other faces ponder over my performance and form opinions about me. Sometimes that is intimidating — to be exposed to an audience and prey to their silent thoughts which will either embrace or dislike what I do. My eye catches a yawner or someone on their phone. I used to think I could escape negative, intrusive thoughts when I sing. No, they find me there too, but with these years of practise, I am fairly skilled at putting them in their place and returning to the moment.
Growing up in New Zealand, I played many a boisterous pub and became used to an applause of knives and forks on china plates. It was a lesson in humility, that’s for sure.
Being background music for a period time is an important stage for an artist. It’s where we decide if we’re going to do this for someone else, for external validation or whether you’re going to do it for yourself, for the love.
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