Last night I performed a show at an outdoor Halloween event. It was a beautiful day out until I started to drive to the show, when it started dumping rain. Luckily they managed to get a large tent over the stage by the time I got there. Unluckily the stage was put where water pooled, so the ground had about an inch of standing water. Oh and as a bonus the tent was leaky, and somehow the leak always managed to follow where I put my case, so all of my gear got wet…and the show hadn’t even started!
I know many acts that when their gear got wet would have called it a day and pack up. Here’s my thinking, it’s already wet, so let’s do the show. We managed to fill up the tent, I don’t know if people wanted to see my show or they just wanted to be a bit dryer?
When doing gigs like this, one of the first things you need to do is address the “elephant in the room” which was we’re all soaked and standing in a pond. So I made a joke about people sitting in front…Oh, I forgot to mention that there were no chairs, so the audience was standing (not ideal for a show).
By addressing these things I won the audience over and we had a blast. However I think if I went up and did my show normally, it wouldn’t have played as well. When something happens and you just ignore it, the audience senses you aren’t confident with what’s going on. When you call it out, it makes you more relatable and gets them on your side quicker.
Louie