At some point in late May, I found myself on a self-imposed stress break.
For one reason or another, my brain felt completely overloaded, as though I needed to spend several weeks with nature, only concentrating on what food I was going to eat and when I was going to sleep.
Somewhere amongst the last things I fancied doing at that moment was promoting and playing another headline gig. But it was all booked in and paid for.
So a couple of weeks before it, I emerged from my hole and started rehearsing and making tik toks. It helped enormously that I had another fantastic support act - Lazygirl - who put in tonnes of effort at her end, including putting up posters around the city in the pouring rain!
But truth be told, I was struggling with my OCD, and the whole thing felt like a mountain to climb.
To distract myself, I once again became my own worst enemy by deciding to spend several hours at the start of the gig week glueing mini disco ball mirrors onto a shelf my brother - newly into woodworking - made for me. Not only did this break off a couple of nails, make my thumbs sore and give me weird wrist bruises from squeezing my hand inside each of the little compartments, it also re-ignited my back injury, which had been plaguing me since the last gig (I think I might have got it from jumping off the stage in Birmingham, as there were no stairs).
So as the gig drew nearer, I knew I had to force myself to rest properly, rather than an “ooh I know I’ll just do a really intricate task for 3 hours” type of rest, which is usually both my forte and my downfall simultaneously.
I distracted myself instead by assisting the same woodworking brother in putting on random £1 bets on the Euros on how many shots and fouls were going to be in each particular game (his money, my ideas), which made the endless football more tolerable as we spent the games counting and willing people to foul and shoot.
Before I knew it, the Liverpool date had rolled around.
We set off at around 10:40am, with Birds sausage rolls, bourbon biscuits and my dad’s crap satnav leading the way. No music in the car again sadly, as he needed to hear the navigation instructions.
I put my headphones in and listened to some of my favourite music from 2024 so far (I have compiled a playlist every year since 2010 as a personal time capsule and memory bank so I don’t forget songs I once liked and can revisit them easily).
It was time to tackle the day’s biggest challenge - putting makeup over my stress acne.
My skin is almost never flawless - it’s not something I’ve been blessed with. I have always been either dry, itchy, sweating or all three at once. I am allergic to many things in skincare and bath/shower/laundry products and have had dark circles under my eyes since I was a child. Luckily, I have never suffered hugely with acne in the way that some people do - it only seems to come out to play when I am either stressed, struggling with my OCD (I mean, usually they go hand in hand) or have just been sitting at the computer touching my face too much.
On this day in history, I had three massive spots - one above my lip and two on my forehead, which would be almost impossible to disguise. I spent most of the journey then, attempting to conceal them as much as I could whilst making up an over the top eye look to distract.
After another battle with the satnav, we arrived outside the venue super early. So early, in fact, that it wasn’t open, apart from someone touching up a painted mural. She very kindly let us in to drop off our equipment, but let’s just say it didn’t feel like the most secure place I’d ever dropped off equipment. I had nightmares of drunken lads running off with my MPC with no one to stop them, but we took the chance. Next stop, our titanic-themed hotel. The room had a jacuzzi bath, and I made a promise to myself to get in it after the gig. After an hour of so of ‘rest’ (how much rest you can actually get when your mind is whirring with thoughts about a massive thing you have to do later that day is debatable) we headed back over to the venue for the sound check. The sound person at this gig was, I would say, the nicest of the tour to date and everything went super smoothly. Soon, Lazygirl and the band turned up and after a quick hello, we went off to get food as they got on with their soundcheck.
We would have the time of our lives at a place called Rudys, we were advised. Rudys served Neapolitan-style pizzas (I’ll neglect to mention that I had to ask the sound engineer what that meant beforehand) and I ordered one which reminded me of the closest thing to my halcyon days.
Allow me to take a short detour.
By far the happiest year of my life to date was 2017. Despite what was going on in the world, I had emerged from my struggles to land in a creative job I enjoyed (at first) in a renovated old police station in the middle of the city. It was a super hot summer, and the building had single-glazed windows and sat above a literal oven (downstairs was a café). I have never been so warm since as I was in that office that year, but when there was a breeze it could be very pleasant. With much less stress (initially) than my previous job, and a regular wage that was slightly upgraded from the last one, I could actually buy new clothes in town and crucially for this story - order deliveroos (and uber eats’) to the office for lunch. In fact, I ordered so many over the couple of years I was there that I must have tried most establishments in Derby and some of the drivers even began to recognise me and say hello.
One of my particular favourites was a pizza from a short-lived stall in a short-lived place called The Post House (Sadly, Derby has many places which are short-lived). It had a fresh tomato base, rocket, cherry tomatoes, Nduja sausage and parmesan (or similar) cheese shavings on top. I made the very most of it whilst it was there.
The pizza at Rudys took me back to it, for the first time in years. Suddenly I was back in that office during the heat of summer, certain it was only a matter of time before my music took off.
It set me up nicely for the gig.
As my parents got the merch table set up, I changed into my outfit in the toilets, whilst reading the usual graffiti daubed on the walls. Someone only tried to push open the locked door once, which was a turnout for the books. I am always fascinated by toilet graffiti, and I have so many questions. I get why bands and artists have sharpies and stickers at hand, but so much graffiti is seemingly from regular punters. Are people truly out here ensuring they pack sharpies for their night out?
I was then shown the green room, which was really just a cupboard with the word “BAND” written on a piece of paper and selotaped to the door. One day, when I have collected up enough footage, I would like to create a video called “rate the green room”. I have a lot of thoughts, and a lot of sympathy for people who perform who aren’t 5 blokes with no standards or expectations beyond a place to put a drink (floor will do).
The one thing this green room had going for it was the pink light cast from a neon sign for Jägermeister, which I figured would make for great photos. Accompanied by my glass of iced water and the self-timer feature on my iPhone, I took several pictures to use at a later date, which seemed to help take my mind off the task shortly at hand.
When I had finished the photoshoot, I made my way back into the venue to watch Lazygirl, who was incredible. I am so lucky to have had such a high calibre of support acts during this tour so far, all of whom I feel blessed to know. I am truly proud of the lineups I have curated.
As has happened at every venue so far, a few people wandered aimlessly in without a ticket throughout the night. It was my mum’s job this time to ask if they had one or not, and inform them that if they wanted one they were £7. There were a few, as always, who seemed shocked that you indeed had to pay to watch something that cost a significant amount of money for skilled professional people to put on. But there were also some who kindly paid on the door.
After an enthusiastic audience response to Lazygirl’s set, I took to the stage soon afterwards, determined to enjoy it despite how I had been feeling of recent.
The good news is I did enjoy it, and this was helped massively by the fact the room was nice and full and the crowd were kind and receptive.
The bad news is that financially the gig wasn’t great for me. I made -£154.18 and was lucky my parents were willing to make it into a family trip and pay for the hotel room, otherwise the hit would have been bigger! But I guess you win some, lose some, and always learn…some?
I am now taking some time off from live gigs over the summer, hoping to rest and heal a little from what has been a rollercoaster ride of an album release so far. I also received news today that my (genuinely hopeful) Arts Council DYCP funding bid has been rejected, which changes my plans somewhat for the rest of the year. I shall once again, I suppose, be in my bedroom working on album two on my Trigger’s Broom iMac.
The positives are that Liverpool was much better than I expected, and none of the gigs so far have been complete failures. I have definitely gained more than I have lost, and I am proud that I have taken the plunge this year and forced my music upon new cities!
Oh, and the jacuzzi bath was fantastic.
More soon,
emzae x
P.S. here’s one of my favourite songs at the moment
I'm pleased you enjoyed playing The Beatles' home city & Lazygirl helped to pull in a good crowd