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Last month I went gallivanting round the country on a ‘Spring Tour’, which, being only eight dates worth of gigs, perhaps would be more appropriately named a ‘tourette’ or a ‘jaunt’. Anyway, some of you didn’t realise that Auntie Olivia was a popstar. Well not quite, but I am one half of a musical, singing, songwriting, footstomping folky duo. We’ve been performing seriously together for just under a year now and all in all, we’re doing really well; we’ve bagged a decent agent, got a few festivals in the summer and preparation for recording our first album as a duo is well underway.
You may think - wow, doesn’t Olivia lead a glamorous life! Well, ladies and gentlemen, a music career certainly has its privileges: doing what you love, and earning a crust from it is a great combination, however it also has its downsides. Self-promotion is tireless, laborious and there are never enough hours in the day to accomplish all the tasks necessary to ensure you’ve covered enough ground to get an audience at the gigs. It’s a full-time job, but one that can be extremely rewarding if you get a good crowd and everyone has a good time. Of course, it’s not all about sell-out performances, but is does help to pay the mortgage if more than three people turn up. Prior to being part of the music industry, I used to go to other people’s gigs and think what an easy life, just get up on stage, warble a few numbers then get trollied - easy! I had no idea how much effort goes into planning, promotion, rehearsal, travelling and such like until I had to start doing it for myself…
The last gig of our mini tour was, to be blunt, horrendous. We drove 250 miles to play at a folk club in Scotland, it was a beautiful drive, and lots of laughs were had on the journey. However, our performance was not a laugh - from start to finish of our 40-minute acoustic set, a young man sitting very near the front was continuously laughing loudly, and shouting ‘Hiya’, his excitement especially seemed to heighten whenever I started to sing. Now had this been anyone else, he would have been asked to be quiet, or even leave, as his behaviour was undeniably distracting for both us and the audience. However, we were informed that the man had learning difficulties. Of course he has every right to go to a show and enjoy the music like anyone else, but his carer made no attempts to calm him down, meaning the songs were barely audible to the audience or to us on stage. I grimaced all the way through my parts of the performance and even considered walking off stage in a diva-like fashion, but realised we would have looked bad had we made a fuss about the situation. In fact we were praised for our professionalism though we had both sung through gritted teeth. We were paid £140 for that gig, to divide between four people (we performed with another duo), and then deduct travel expenses. So, we put it down to experience, went home, and eventually saw the funny side of it.
The other day I was trawling the internet to see if anyone had mentioned our gigs at all, I came across a review of that evening, incidentally it was our first review as a duo. The reviewer had made a point of criticising our performance, especially my ‘insecure harmonising’, yet had completely failed to mention the reason we had struggled to confidently deliver our usual show. Thanks very much. For a few hours I felt crushed, vowing to give up singing and do something less exposing, something safer and far less crucifying. Now the dust has settled, having had time to ponder my feelings on this - a much more important lesson has emerged. It is a dangerous game to allow your self-esteem to be dictated by others, be it your parents, friends, or a hard-nosed reviewer; looking to other people for approval can only ever lead to inevitable disappointment. Criticism is hard to swallow, but it is only another person’s, sometimes short-sighted, opinion. What matters is that we are happy with ourselves, enjoy what we do, and try to be good people with it.
Now, where’s me application for Pop Idol?
Olivia Newton-John Cruise
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