I didn’t sleep much last night. When I get home from a gig I am wide awake and restless. It usually takes me a couple of hours to come down. It all depends on how the show went. Last night I had a buzz running in my veins that I’ve never felt before. I was pacing the floors and reliving my night in my head for hours. God knows how many cups of tea I drank. I thought about the album. The songs. The show. The people I spoke with. The people I knew, the strangers I didn’t. The reception. The cheers. The hugs. The complete joy.
I had a good feeling about this show. Rehearsals went great, but I was still a little nervous. The room was new for a start. I had never even been to Stage 3 for a show before. I took the train alone to the gig (I’m a terrible conversationalist right before I play). I closed my eyes the whole way there and smiled at the thought of our last rehearsal a few hours earlier. My band are amazing. Often when we jam I close my eyes and I imagine where I was when I wrote the songs. Some times its Castledawson. Some times its Brooklyn. I always get lost in a daydream. But I always come back, and I look around the room, and I feel blessed to be surrounded by such talent. Great people with great talent are so hard to find.
I wasn’t ready to make an album until the start of this year. The writing process that began was intense. Melodies would come to me on the street. Or In a coffee shop. Or In the subway. Some songs took half an hour to write, others took weeks. But when the time came to go into the studio with my best ten songs I was so hungry to record. To stand in a sold out venue and perform West Orchard from start to finish was something that I will never forget. I am well aware that a lot of people got turned away last night, and I want to thank every single person that made the effort to come out. I wish we could have got everyone squeezed in. These are the nights that every musician dreams of. We all want our songs to be heard. We all want people to enjoy listening. Last night was like a dream, and I am going to relish it for a long time.
New York is a crazy place. When I moved here I quickly realized how intense the highs and lows can be in this place. One day you’re up, the next you’re down. But for me the highs always crush the lows. I instantly forget them, and I feel inspired.
John xo