
Apparently they are very attention-getting, because when I got to the BPC, everyone already knew who I was.
"Oh, you're the girl in the posters!"
"You're the girl who's been staring at us for the past week! It's a very haunting photo."
One guy gave me a breakdown of the ups and downs of the poster.
"See the eyes - the eyes are perfect. But I don't like the position you're in. You're all hunched over and you have no length. You look like a midget. It doesn't do you justice. You're much prettier in real life."
That's a good thing, I guess.
Anyway, the guys who work there are really nice. I asked the guy at the front what I needed to do to get ready for the show, and he suggested I gargle with a shot of bourbon to loosen up my throat.
"Well, do you want to give me a free shot of bourbon, then?"
"I'm not in charge of that department," he replied. But later on in the night he poured me a shot - my first experience with bourbon, and I'm not really much for shots anyway. I chased it down with an entire glass of ice water.
Apparently 7pm on a Friday in New York isn't a good time for a show - I ended up playing for three of my friends and the BPC employees. The act that followed me didn't even show up until like 15 minutes before their set, and they only had two or three fans with them too.
It was kind of nice though - it was intimate, and not nerve-racking. I discovered recently that I play better when I'm focusing more on meaning what I'm singing instead of hitting every note right, and this was a good chance to practice that.
My friend Brett brought a friend with him, someone I hadn't met before. Partway through my set - I'm guessing somewhere around "If We'd Just Said What We Meant" and "White Paint" - she turned to Brett and said, "She's really good, but I think she had a really bad breakup."
To which I just have to laugh.