Related reading:
The saga of my debut album, chapter 3 (which covers my first visit to Manchester)
Tickets for my next show, in Birmingham
Watch the set in full, kindly recorded by the sound engineer!
Photo credit: whatdavedid on Instagram
And so, the tour continued on. April 19th was a date seared in my brain since the previous December. In a year of career firsts (following another year of career firsts), April 19th would mark my first headline show outside the East Midlands.
I only knew a handful of people from Manchester, and didn’t know if I even had any followers who lived in the area. My decision to hold a show there would not have been recommended by any self-styled TikTok music marketing guru. I had sold one advance ticket by April 4th, and the vision of having to perform my entire album to one person haunted my nightmares.
Of course, Normal Life Pending… readers, this is where I assure you that I have very much played to empty rooms before. Multiple times. It’s part of the journey. But never at any of those gigs had I worked as hard on the organisation and promotional activities surrounding it as this one. The thought of working harder than ever and still flopping made me shudder. In fact, I genuinely had moments of regret for deciding to tour at all. I dreamt of doing nothing more than lying on my bed creating my own neighbourhood on The Sims and playing each family for multiple generations until the game broke for the entirety of 2024, in between creating new music. It certainly wouldn’t be as scary.
Fuelled by a desire to finish what I had started, however, I continued on. Manchester would either ease my stress or ramp it up to new levels.
Periodically, I would message the group chat consisting of myself and my support acts, The Junta and Factory Acts. “We’ve only sold one ticket,” I’d splutter breathlessly through the medium of text, “Are you absolutely sure people will buy them on the door?” Each time they assured me in a calm manner that everything would be fine. That kept me from having another breakdown. As dramatic as that sounds, being the sole brain behind a creative project doing things that should really require a team can get incredibly overwhelming - especially when literally every task which needs be done has to be done by yourself using a variety of different skillsets. It’s hard to explain, but sometimes it can feel like you’re going to explode if you don’t go on a silent retreat for 6 weeks.
Nevertheless, as the gig approached reality rather than a distant date in the future, a few more ticket sales began to trickle in. My breathing eased.
Until the email.
A couple of weeks out, after months of promotion and printed posters stuck up in shop windows and the like, I was suddenly told that the original venue I was playing at - AATMA - had accidentally been double booked and my gig would be moved to another venue. Although it was in the same building, so in practice not a huge deal, it meant that the details on my posters, social media graphics, press releases, videos, tickets and more were all incorrect and needed amending.
My breathing quickened again. What if, on top of everything, this meant even less people might attend? If I didn’t let everyone know, might pay-on-the-door gig-goers arrive at the original venue and assume the gig had changed and I wasn’t playing anymore? And if I did let everyone know, might people get confused about the whole thing and decide not to bother? Did it make me look bad, or unorganised? And how long would it take to ensure as many people knew as possible?
The ball-ache began.
I filmed a video, made new graphics, changed the ticket listing, arranged for posters to be put up in and around the original venue informing people of the situation, e-mailed the people I had sent press releases to, messaged people I had invited personally, then laid down on my bed and tried to forget about it.
Soon, the day of the gig rolled around. I visualised gathering all of my stress in a ball and throwing it off a cliff. The run-up was in the past, I had done my very best and now it was just a case of trying to enjoy myself.
My parents in tow once again, we headed off in the car towards Manchester, driving through the ‘seaside town without the sea’ that is Matlock Bath, and observing various picturesque countryside scenes along the way to the soundtrack of a Spotify playlist I’d made for the occasion.
“This is a bit long, isn’t it em?” as Lana Del Rey’s Venice Bitch was nearing the end of its long instrumental section before she sings
If you weren’t mine I’d be jealous of your love