Old energy

I was one of those smiley sideline wives, where you sit there and smile at everyone else’s accomplishments. Usually it’s at a table with other wives looking up adoringly at our husbands. I don’t know if we’re still out there as much among the ranks of young women today, but that was definitely a thing of my generation that I fell into. And I played the part well.

Last night my ex was playing with a band for a benefit concert with a singer, who’s a local celebrity. She invited me to come out to the gig with my ex and do a few songs, so I did. I’ve sung behind her before, but she’s never hired me as a back-up. I’ve been there more of as the wife of someone in her band who happens to be at the gig anyway.

For the 3 hours I wasn’t on stage, I milled around through the crowd of people I didn’t know, pretending to belong and care for the cause. When she called me up on stage, there wasn’t time to set up my gear – so I ended playing up on my ex’s gear, with none of the monitors set for me (couldn’t hear my vocals) and weird pedal settings that at least 3 times I thought I was going for the sustain and then all of the sound would disappear. And because I was using his keyboards, he was wasn’t able to be on stage the same time as me, which was too bad because he was the only musician up there who did know my material.

The guitar player got about 50% of the chords right. And the other 50% of the time it was probably ok because I had temporarily cut off most of the sound with one of the mystery pedals anyway.

Then somehow I ended up on stage singing backgrounds to “Grapevine,” and trust me, if you know anything about me as an artist, this is one song you surely don’t associate with me. So there I was dancing around up there like a deer in the headlights thinking “What am I doing here?”

I know what I was doing there. Being the one in the picture behind the celebrity that David Letterman points to and says “Who’s that guy?” I’ve done it for years and it’s got to stop.

I don’t know how big my own world really is, or can be. But I will discover that now. And whatever it is, it’s got to be better than being a barnacle on somebody’s else’s.