Friday was an awesome day! I had my fourth show!

Allison Merten Performing at Evolution Arts Collective
Photo by Mike Hansen

I go to open for the extremely talented and high-energy Jimmy Murn + the HeyMakers at Evolution Arts Collective’s Holiday Revolution Arts and Handmade Gift Sale.

Jimmy Murn + the HeyMakers Performing at Evolution Arts Collective
Photo by Yasir Alhumaidan

Jimmy Murn + the HeyMakers set me up with a microphone to sing into and one for my acoustic guitar. (I was so nervous that I  forgot to bring a cable so that I could plug my Dean into an amp, but thankfully the mic on my acoustic worked just fine 🙂 )

Allison Merten Performing at Evolution Arts Collective
Photo by Yasir Alhumaidan

Since I have been only performing in Madison, at my previous shows, half or more of the audience was made up of people I knew. However, at Friday’s show, the majority of the people there were ones I didn’t know.

Allison Merten Performing at Evolution Arts Collective
Photo by Yasir Alhumaidan

This made me feel really nervous, but since I want to continue performing for others (because it makes me feel most alive!!!), I need to get over my stage fright.

Really, I should be able to get over it because it doesn’t make any sense to me. For my day job, I teach ESL. This requires me to teach for a two-hour period, and I can deal with people looking at me for two hours without feeling nervous. Yet, when it comes to performing for people for 30 to 40 minutes, I get sooo nervous. (I don’t understand 😦 )

Despite the fact that I was nervous at Friday’s show, my nervousness that day was WAY LESS than my nervousness at other shows. (Nothing will compare to my nerves at my first performance!!!!! 🙂 )

As for my debut album, TEMPTATION, I’ve been working with  my awesome recording engineer, Willie Martinez, to mix down all of my songs. I think this may be the most stressful part of recording! I have to decide what is “good enough” to be released, and for a perfectionist, that is a really difficult task! 😉

I’m so happy that I got to perform last week! And I’m sooo excited to be sooo close to finishing my album!