#easterfest2015

SO

Over the Easter weekend I got the amazing opportunity to play at my first festival- Easterfest in Toowomba. Now I will be the first to say that these pics are slightly misleading baha. I did not play mainstage, but I thought I would include some photos of one of my favourite bands Switchfoot who did tear up the mainstage. 

My own performances were fairly small, but boy did I LEARN this weekend. From my own mistakes and successes as well as watching many other amazing (and less amazing) performances. At every show I sat through I was watching more than I was listening. I wanted to figure out what divides the good from the great. Why the audience screams and stands for some artists and sits in polite appreciation for others. It was profoundly educating so below I would like to detail the five things I so far think it takes to be a good musician and more than that, a good performer.

1) Confidence. Well duhhhh. May seem obvious but the performers the crowd responded to were so entirely sure of themeslves and believed in their craft. It doesn’t mean being ostentatious. But it is that effect of reassuring the audience from the second that you get on the stage that everything you are about to give them is PURE gold. The audience will only have as much faith in  you as  you have in yourself. 2) YOUR OWN SOUND.

I am forever saying this to people. There is already an Ed Sheeran, there is already a Beyonce, there ( was :( ) already an Amy Winehouse. Be inspired  by other musicians but dont aspire to their sound. Find what is yours, find what you alone have to give, the world doesn’t want carbon copies- thats not how art becomes art. 

3) Relateability. Back to the performance side. People engage more when the words coming out of your mouth strike a chord with them somehow. Comradery on any level is always going to beneficial when you are trying to get people on your side.  4) LISTEN TO AS MUCH MUSIC AS YOU CAN.

Another thing I am always saying but was reinforced this weekend. New movements new sounds are born out of gumbo. By that I mean the more that you throw into the melting pot of your creativity, the higher the chances are that what will come out will be something with a twist, something distinct, not necessarily unique, but something that blends all the best things from the huge range of genres and inspirations you surround yourself with. 

It’s lowkey a life goal of mine to absorb myself in every single genre properly. I’ve done the Indie thing, I’ve done the early 2000′s rnb thing (good times), Ive done the pop thing, I’ve done the Soul thing, I’ve done the Motown thing,the contemporary rock thing, currently getting into the contemporary rap and hip hop thing; and the more genres I fully get immersed in for a period of time, the more ways of thinking about music I cultivate. But as I said before, thats the inspiration not the aspiration. I still want to always approach my music as my own. And naturally the things ive learnt from various genres will add different flavours and colours to what I write (at least that is my ultimate dream.)