july 21 2024
A bad show is better than no show, I guess.
I’m on stage, dancing half-heartedly and not shaking ass. I turn to Josh, my DJ, and give him a wide eyed look.
“What the fuck,” I mouth. He shakes his head and mouths back, “I know.”
Fox is to my right, strumming along. I look at him and he shrugs his shoulders. None of us know what’s going on.
I turn back to face the dwindling audience. The vibes are way off and we’re not even halfway through. This has never happened to me before and I don’t know what to think but I do my little twirl and 2-step and keep going. I cut three songs. There is no encore. We make it through the set. We pack up our shit.
The boys stay behind for the after party. I head back to the hotel and shower away the hard feelings.
A bad show is difficult, for sure - there’s nothing more demoralizing. But getting humbled in Yellowknife of all places is just…something else. No offence.
The last time I had a bad set was in Lisbon, last year on tour, where the audience insisted on standing at the back of the room throughout my entire performance no matter how much I encouraged them to move the fuck up. Must have been a language barrier. I was speaking “are-you-ready-to-have-a-good-time?” and they were speaking “fuck-you-Canadian-slut-bitch”.
I remember locking myself in my room after the show and sobbing very dramatically, all alone. I thought I was done for, that I had made some terrible mistake and was in fact, not good at this and wasting my time. Admittedly, there was no wi-fi at the Airbnb our entire stay and it was enough to set me off into a peak luteal phase spiral. I wasn’t myself.
This time, I’m older, wiser and I know better than to succumb to self-pity so I don’t cry. But I feel frustrated and irritated. An itch I’ve been trying to scratch for months pops up again and will just not go away. In fact, it’s getting worse.
I want change. Big change. I want a sweeping tide to come through and cleanse me of my sins and my faults and make me new again. I’ve had my foot on the brake all year and now I’m trying to hit the gas but this bitch is empty!!! I can’t believe how much time it is all taking.
It’s 2am and the sun still hasn’t really set. It doesn’t set here. The trees are scrappy and hard. I look out through the third floor hotel window at the mosquito colonies, the lakes, the taxidermy polar bears, the ragged ass road. I take it all in, knowing that I’ll most likely never return to this place.
It’s getting bright again.
