Fresher
Bristol is a city full of life with lots of festivals, street art and live music. It’s a hometown for the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta, one of the largest festivals of hot air balloons in Europe. Here you can easily chance upon Banksy’s graffiti and it will even be protected by the City Council. If you enjoy busking, not only will you get quite a bit of spare change, you will also receive acclaim and gratitude from the passers-by. This is a little haven for all the artists starting out, who have outgrown their little towns, but are not ready yet to conquer the enormously huge and mighty London. To be honest, before I left Moscow, I had second thoughts: would it not be better to move straight to the capital? There was an obvious reason why at least ten percent of the MGIMO graduates of Class 2014 went straight to London. Nevertheless, the choice was made, the documents were sent away, agonising waiting for receiving my visa was over, and here I was packing my suitcase and leaving without certainty of returning.
Then there was my very first open mic – an event I would never forget! It wasn’t like I hadn’t sung my songs in front of strangers before. I performed at the university before, and had little gigs at cafes. However, all those events were organised in advance with guests invited specifically for the occasion. But there, in a bar called The Lanes, people came just to hang out with their friends and have a few pints. All the performances were a complete mystery both to them and to me. To my horror, all the acts were really good! Open mics in England do not provide simple entertainment for music lovers, and they are definitely not an alternative to karaoke. It is one of the main tools for every musician wishing to get a gig at a venue or make connections with managers and promoters. Where else do you think you can shamelessly mention all your links to the music pages and list all the upcoming gig dates? Obviously, at a jam-packed bar in the city centre full of live music scene appreciators.
So, here I was, borrowing a huge guitar from Jesse, the host, going on stage, mixing up half of my own lyrics and receiving a few loud cheers for the very first time. I will not lie, a pretty foreign girl, sweetly singing about how important it is to never forget that the world is not in black and white, is a good winning formula for starters.
I began doing more and more open mics, and the borrowed guitars were occasionally changed for the house pianos, which most of the time were moved impractically far back almost off the stage. Very soon I developed a sort of schedule with a certain open mic for each day of the week, except for Saturday and Sunday, simply because I could not find any. I turned into the most regular customer of all the local music shops in attempts to find the perfect guitar that would have all the features I could dream of and still be within my not so dreamy budget. Straight after opening an account with an English bank, and receiving a transfer from mum “for the long term”, I came running to the Music Room on Park Street and made my most precious and endearing purchase – a little electro-acoustic guitar that I called Martin.
Not long after that I got my first gig at quite a big, but very empty, venue called Be in Bristol. From time to time its empty space would be filled in by the loud and happy student groups, but during my premiere night they all happened to be very busy with other things, so I was not blessed with a big audience. I played my first ever set for eight friends that came to support me, who courageously sat through all the two hour performance with patience and grace. I am sure that evening was one of the longest for all of us! Nevertheless, the manager of the venue seemed to be impressed with the atmosphere and even invited me again. Unfortunately, the bar started facing some financial difficulties, and by spring it was closed. No, I do not accept any guilt, and the proof of my innocence would be other venues that kept prospering long after inviting Martin and me.
It was an incredible time of developments and experiments! Every day I learned something new: practicing with two capos, adding percussion while playing the guitar, introducing a new type of rhyming in my lyrics, leaving the standard structure of songwriting behind. It was a time full of mistakes and new revelations: one day it seemed I found an innovation, another, it looked like I was stuck with a cliché. Slowly I became friends with poets, artists, starting actors, and even circus performers. I befriended almost every act that would take part in the open mics that I was attending. I continued to look for the ways how to make it further.
The issue with every first chapter of everyone’s story is that it comes to an end, and you need to move onto to the next level. I had been walking around with my eyes wide open, and being consumed by the feeling of euphoria and endless opportunities. But gradually, the novelty faded away, and I was left with the harsh but truthful realisation: I was not that good in music, as I had always imagined. My accent and pleasant looks might have been helping to enchant the audience for a little bit. However, it was not enough to spark their true longtime interest in my music. When I sang, people who listened could barely get the meaning of the lyrics. It was disastrous, because in art more than anything, I valued the chance to share my thoughts and feelings with the audience. I always believed that every person had a unique talent, and that was how I knew for sure that I would find my perfect niche. Therefore, the understanding of the fact that my music was not really one of a kind did not come easy. It was quite likely, that in Moscow my ballads about the difficult lives of young creatures seemed unusual and intriguing. However, in Bristol I was competing against too many singer-songwriters, and my one and only advantage was my foreign background along with my accent that actually prevented me from completing my own agenda. It was essential to bring some changes and to do it as quickly as possible! In contrast to fellow artists, I did not have the privilege of chasing my dream till my last breath. My race would end precisely with my visa, and everyone knows how strict the visa regime in the UK is.
Rock-Vector, N6 (26), 16.02.2016
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