Yesterday for the first time I saw the October calendar for Club Passim, which lists me as opening for Sarah McQuaid on October 27th. It’s beyond exciting. Passim is, for me, the icon of the folk music world. Although I’ve been on its stage before, this is my first time as a named performer. It’s been around (in slightly different guises) for 52 years, although I first encountered it a mere 23 years ago, when spending the summer in Cambridge. It was a major factor in my decision to go to school in the area and, eventually, to move back. Yesterday I also played a song on the Club Passim stage. That was as part of the Dave Carter Tribute concert, organized by Tracy Grammer. She played some Dave songs, Meg Hutchinson and Bob Franke played some of their own songs (although Bob is enough of a Dave fan to have played his favorite Dave Carter song, too), and in between names of audience members interested in performing were drawn from a hat watering can to be called up to play a Dave song on stage. I put my name in the watering can, and after Tracy played an opening song she reached in to pull out a name. It was mine. So suddenly, with no preparation, I had to grab my guitar, get on stage, get the microphone adjusted, plug in, tune, get my fingerpicks on my fingers, and play a song. I played Red, and didn’t do an especially good job of it. It was fine, I’m sure, but I was unaccountably terrified. I couldn’t just relax and enjoy it. And although Dave’s songs have insane numbers of words and the choruses all change, Red is a song I can remember in my sleep . . . except apparently not while standing on the Passim stage, since I dropped a line. (Luckily, if there’s anywhere the audience can help you out with the lyrics to an obscure Dave Carter song it’s at a Dave Carter tribute.) I’m trying to think through why it wasn’t the kind of experience I’d hoped, because I want my opening gig in October to be different. There was a lot going on. There was the surprise and quickness of getting called up first. There was the fact that I had to get everything together and adjusted on stage on the fly. Neither of those will be the case when I play in October, and I suspect that will make a difference. But part of it, also, was the mystique of Passim, and that will be there to an even greater degree when I play my first billed slot there. And part of it, I also realized, was the stage with the blinding lights. As an audience member, I appreciate that kind of concert lighting, but it’s extremely distracting as a performer. And although I’ve definitely played shows in those lighting conditions, a) I realize that I’ve often had a slightly-terrified reaction, and b) that I haven’t played any of those shows recently. I’ve been playing a lot. But I’ve been playing shows where I can see my audience, and that makes all the difference in the world. So, since I’m excited about the Passim show (and at the same time likely to imbue it with greater significance than an analogous gig might have), I think I’m going to have to put myself in situations between now and then in which I play shows with big scary lights, so I can get more used to them, and get to a point where I can actually enjoy myself in October.