One: Street performing is not easy.
Just because I've busked a few weekends - and just because I know theoretically how some of the best street performers do what they do - that does NOT mean that I can just go out there and do it and expect success every time.
That's what was going through my head yesterday afternoon, when I was rounding off my first street show in eight months. Even as I was performing, I knew that I was messing up horribly. I had forgotten most of the lines that had become almost natural to me back when I was performing in Chicago. My timing was off, my jokes were rushed, and I just moved from one trick to the next without really focusing on my interactions with the audience.
I realized when I was getting strapped into the straight jacket that I should probably have stopped the show there and hatted my audience. But I didn't, and by the time I was strapped in, it was too late. All I could do was finish up the show, watch my audience trickle off, and rethink what I was doing before my next audience appeared.
So what had happened?
I was out of practice. I was using a mic and amp for the first time, wasn't sure that I was using it right, and got distracted by the feedback. My audience (surprisingly) appeared before I had even finished setting up. I wasn't ready for them. I was... having trouble getting my arm out of the straight jacket. I never sat down and scripted my show like one street performer said I should. I didn't... I didn't...
All excuses.
Somehow, in my time NOT performing, I got this idea into my head that I'm a pretty good street performer - and forgetting the fact that I'm good, yes, maybe. But I'm good for a beginner. Writing this blog and thinking about performing all the time, even when I wasn't performing, had somehow romanticized the whole thing for me. I was remembering all the highs and forgetting all the lows... forgetting the grit that it took to make it through a day where, for the most part, the majority of people walking past are ignoring you.
Two: Should I have prepared more?
What would that have entailed? Scripting? Practicing? The magic, I have down. It's the performance that I messed up on... but even if I didn't have the magic entirely down, should I have stayed in and just practiced?
The second crowd that day showed up pretty much as soon as the survivors of the last show walked off. I was too worried about messing up the straight jacket again, so I ended my show before I got there.
I got a larger hat from this partial show.
I could feel my show getting better as the day went on, as I stopped thinking about what I was doing and started focusing on interacting with my audience. There was one very awkward moment when I couldn't pull a card out of someone's back pocket... so, eh, I ended up just trying to fish around in there until I heard someone say, "What's happening here?" until, embarrassed, I pulled the whole deck out and found the card out in the open air.
It was ok. By that point, the audience had grown, and I was ready to try the straight jacket again. I had more or less messed up the trick, but the playfulness in my interactions with the audience was going great
I ended the evening with a police officer in my audience, my largest hat, and the performance high that I've been craving since my last show in Chicago.
So should I have stayed in and practiced?
The best thing about performing on the streets? If you mess up, you'll get to try again. And again. And again. The performance is the warming up. That's how buskers get good - not by staying inside and practicing but by going out there and giving it a try.
Three: What's different about Harvard Square?
Too much to share in this one blog post. (Sorry, Jeremy!) I will write about it next week, though. The main difference is just the sheer number of performers in Harvard Square and the politics that comes with that. Also - a lot more interruptions. More on that next week.
(And apologies for my horrible photo taking skills. I'll try and remember next weekend to take more pictures!)
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