I hadn’t quite realised, when scheduling the gigs for my debut album tour, just how tight the turnaround for two headline gigs within two weeks of each other. As it turned out, those two weeks would have ideally been spent lying down in a quiet room.
Not a great idea, then, to have a (lovely) gig in between at Sofar Nottingham. This only gave me 9 days to do as much promotion as I could, and for most of those days I was either too tired or anxious to be at my best.
When gig day quickly arrived, however, my mood lifted somewhat. After the buildup, I was just excited to be doing what I loved.
I worked with an external promoter in Birmingham - an idea to take some of the work off my plate - but it didn’t really take much of the pressure or stress away, and if anything I worried more as I couldn’t see the advance ticket sales at my end and witness the late ones trickle in on the day, putting my mind as ease.
Nevertheless, I trusted the promoter to get at least a few people in. I attempted to put the doubts and worries to the back of my mind, and we headed out in the car around 3pm.
The journey was quite short, and the satnav of doom made its grand return.
“Hey dad, maybe it’ll be ok today,” I said, “After all, it usually wants to take us to Birmingham by default, so at least it knows the way.” Half an hour or so later we started to wonder if the default destination was actually Birmingham, Alabama.
I asked if anyone would like some music on, or if they would just like to be quiet. My dad grunted something, and my mum said “We’re ok at the minute.”
“I’ve downloaded the greatest hits of Boney M,” I protested, only to be met by a wall of silence.
When we reached the city, chaos ensued. Birmingham City football club had just been relegated from The Championship, and crowds people in blue shirts were drinking outside pubs. We squeezed past and made our way up to the venue.
The dressing room was your typical fayre - most venues I go to seem to have given up on keeping theirs in a pleasant state, such is the frequency I’m sure of (mostly) man-bands doing god knows what in there. They tend to be just clean enough to be acceptable, whilst still giving you a bit of an “ewwww” feeling inside. One day I will post a dressing room rank - only sharing the venue name of the best one, of course.
After a quite lengthy sound check - partly due to being a headliner and partly due to the venue installing a new PA system - it was time for food.
Regular readers will know that finding food we all like has been a challenge on this tour, but this time we were finally successful. Digbeth was like an assault on the senses, but in a good way. I’m quite the fan of what seems to be the trend of turning industrial areas into PARTY CENTRAL. Everywhere you looked, old factories and warehouses were vibrating with music. It made me want to go again, on another sunny weekend, just to experience it all without the stress of knowing later on in the evening, I’d have to perform a one-woman show.
We ended up eating at a lovely little spot called Baked in Brick, which served wood-fired pizza. We sat in a covered space outside, which was a nice break from all of the noise and commotion. My parents had ham and mushroom pizzas and I had one with the iconic combination of Chicken and Nduja sausage with some other bits and pieces. There are few combinations I enjoy more.
Soon it was time to return to the venue, and greet my support acts - the lovely Genevieve Miles and Lucy Crisp. I also changed into my outfit, whilst my dad set up the merch.
I was tense throughout - I just wanted a bustling crowd for everyone, and I feared not being able to achieve it. Sadly, Lucy had to perform to a small group of people, and I felt terrible, as I had been there many times. She gave it her all regardless and was brilliant, and the silver lining was that at least there weren’t absolute crickets. It could, after all, have been worse. When Genevieve entered the stage, the crowd grew significantly. It was an amazing set, and my mood started to lift a little. Aware of the prospect of the crowd leaving and the impending curfew I needed to fit my set within, I rushed onto the stage and got my equipment ready. It was all going ok, until my guitar started buzzing.
It had all been fine during the sound check mere hours before, but now, we couldn’t fix it. I was anxious to start and since the buzzing was in my monitors an so not heard by the audience, I decided to deal with it and begin. The intro started playing, but I couldn’t hear the full frequency spectrum of the track, and so I couldn’t tell how fast I needed to play the drum samples. It was a problem I knew would take a while to explain and more time experimenting with various settings to fix, so I decided to make do with that, to. But I couldn’t keep my mind off it for the first few songs, which were not my best with forgotten lyrics and silly little mistakes.
I got more settled in as the set continued, and the crowd were very kind and supportive. I have done enough gigs now to know that most people don’t even notice your mistakes - especially if it’s the first time they have heard the songs.
What didn’t get better, though, was my body temperature! With the air conditioning switched earlier in the evening as everyone was too cold, I ended up dripping with sweat during my performance as though I was running a 5k in the height of summer.
Eventually, I finished the set with my usual yell of
“This is what it feels like to be free!” And began tidying away my equipment as security guards for the club night entered the room. To my surprise, a lovely woman called Georgina had bought a vinyl copy of my album and asked for it to be signed. We had our picture taken together, and she said she enjoyed every one of my songs. That meant a lot, and as is so often, made a tiring and sometimes challenging day worth it.
The last gig of this leg of the tour takes place in Liverpool on 21st June, so if you would like to be there, advanced tickets are here.
A massive thank you to Dead Wax, What’s Happenin’ Concerts, Genevieve Miles and Lucy Crisp for making Birmingham happen, and to everyone who stopped to listen.
emzae x
Birmingham City relegated, emzae promoted!