Rush of my Heart

What a night.
Everyone is excited to break into the San Francisco music scene, right? Conceptually, yes, that is exciting. But let me tell you people, it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
As we drove over the bay bridge at sunset, I felt my excitement mounting. I’ve played well over a hundred shows now in all kinds of places and cities..but I have actually never once played in the famous city I live right next to.
As we were about to get off the bridge, the view of San Francisco at night was really quite impressive. I felt my heart expand at the thought that tonight, I would be a part of this place.
Then we got into the city.
Circling prostitutes and men sleeping at the cross walk signs was a bit odd, though San Francisco does have a bit of a reputation. Still – being smack dab in the middle of it all instead of watching it from a tv screen is a bit different. At a red light, a homeless man approached our car and waved his sign in front of us: “Starvin’ Like Marvin”. I didn’t get it. He flashed his toothless smile at me.
I am SO not a city person. I prefer my quiet life at the foot of the quiet hills, where you can see the sunrise over the windmill, and deer wander down my street.
Then we arrived at the venue.
First of all, I have never seen a place in real life that looks SO different from the website representation.
Website: Beautiful, low lit, Italian, warm, friendly, borderline fancy atmosphere.
Real life: skanky bar.
My reservations were in full swing before I even entered the place. The parking alone was enough to make me not want to leave the tinted windows of my car.
I wish I could say that the worst of it was the double booking, but it really wasn’t, and I was almost in tears before my set even began – one foot out the door in my indecision to stay. Due to being brought in under false pretenses (like the promise of an hour slot and..um..pay…), I would have been justified in leaving. But something inside of me still wanted to play in that smelly, trash strewn armpit of a city. Maybe it was even just to show myself that I could.
As my set began, I tried to let the music take me, the way it usually does. Then the sirens started. Something was obviously going on down the street…4 racing cop cars, an unmarked one, and a firetruck flew down the crowded street, honking and singing the whole way down. A questionable looking person came in and chose the only seat directly in front of me, clutching a vodka bottle in his left hand and rubbing his stomach with the other. He felt much too close for comfort in the wide open space, and I closed my eyes against him as he belched loudly. More sirens flew past.
I started sweating, and turned my face to the open window. If I raised my eyes high enough, I could see the skyline of the city lighting up the air. It really did look stunning. Then my eyes fell lower and lower, until finally they were level with the street, and the filth overwhelmed everything else. People screaming on the corner. Graffiti everywhere. Three skantily clad women on the arms of one man. Two people in dark clothes quietly exchanging money. Honking horns. I brought my eyes inside, and looked around the room and saw the corner of people that had been drinking consistently since I arrived more than an hour before. They were lost in their own raucous laughter.
A few people sprinkled the back barstools, two with headphones in as they worked on their laptops. More sirens passed. My heart started to sink, and I forgot the second verse entirely of the song I was singing, and turned it into an instrumental as a feeling of despair nudged somewhere next to my rib cage. Was this what it meant to be a “San Francisco Headliner”? Was this really what it had come to? What was I doing?
Then something caught my eye, and I looked to my family’s smiling faces, and the face of my friend who sacrificed her time and made the drive out to see my first SF show that I had been so excited about. I could feel their encouragement seeping through their pores…crawling over the dirty floorboards, and up my own skin, and I strummed harder. I had to stop myself and ask, who am I doing this for? And I knew deep down that the answer was me. I didn’t go there tonight so that San Francisco could hear me, I went because this is what I love to do. Music is my passion – I could sing from a soapbox on the street corner, yet the music would stay the same. Remembering that made it easier to keep going, and I focused on the lyrics. I felt them hum through my fingertips, and for a moment – I was lost again in that familiar place of no rules, melodies, and chords. As long as I kept my eyes shut.
My set was over in half an hour, and yet it still felt much longer in the thick and awkward atmosphere.
Everyone gets bad gigs occasionally, right? It’s all part of the show, you win some, you lose some. At least you’re still getting out there – and plus, you can’t judge the entire city on one crappy venue.. That’s what I kept telling myself as I packed up my gear quickly. But when the man at the register told me he hoped I would come back, all I could do was laugh.