Well, it happened again yesterday during our second service. Another mishap on stage in the middle of the worship set. For some reason, things have been happening to me on stage every so often for the last couple of months. For example, while playing electric guitar, I had a string break on me. And while playing acoustic a few weeks back, my guitar's battery died in between services and I didn't know it until it was too late to do anything about it. In another instance, when playing bass in the second service, the sound wasn't coming through for some reason, but later I found out that it had somehow been unplugged from the floor (again, this happened between services). Yesterday during our second service while playing acoustic, I had a guitar string to unwind on me. Not break, unwind. How does that even happen?!? These are the types of things I've been dealing with on stage the last couple of months.
But, you know what? It's okay. However, I can't lie to you and tell you that I've learned something from every single one of these experiences. Sometimes, it just happens and I have no clue why. It's still alright. On the other hand, there have definitely been mistakes in the past that I've learned from. I remember a particular instance when it was only a couple of weeks after I joined the team as the rhythm guitar player and for whatever reason our lead guitar player told us on Friday that he wasn't going to be able to make it for the service on Sunday. I was then informed that I'd be playing the lead parts on everything and really didn't have a say-so in the matter. It wasn't a big deal except it was for a song called "Here In Your Presence", a song that we have done for a while now. That song had what I thought at the time to be a "crazy hard" guitar solo. I worked all Friday night and Saturday night learning this solo and by 2am Sunday morning, I was feeling really good with it. Sunday morning came and played it perfectly through sound check. Then, in the service, when the song came to the chorus before this solo, my hands started shaking so badly, they became numb. I couldn't feel anything I was playing. I muted nearly every single note of that solo. I was devastated. I knew I had goofed it up terribly. I was even looking up to make sure no tomatoes were flying at my face! I have had moments since then where I didn't play a solo well, or sang a note wrong, but nothing nearly as bad as that. But, looking back on that, I'm glad it happened. That instance made me rid myself of so much stage fright. It made me to not be afraid of messing up no matter how "hard" something may be. I think these moments are good for any musician or singer. It teaches one so much about being on stage and performing in front of people.
Again, I can't always tell you why these things happen. Sometimes, it seems for no reason at all. As much as I hate it when something like that happens and in the moment I just feel like walking off stage, I do know that God still shows up. God still works. He doesn't leave the room just because a guitar string broke or a microphone is accidentally left on mute. Jesus is still honored. To me, that's all that matters.
Peace,
Justin
No comments:
Post a Comment