I hate to even admit it... just because it dates me. But I've dreamed of playing the big stage at Kerrville Folk Festival for 20 years. it is a folk festival that has run more than 40 years and some of the greats started in the same shoes I'm in this year as a New Folk Finalist; such as Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle, Hal Ketchum, Robert Earl Keen, Nanci Griffith, Lucinda Williams, Lynn Langham, James McMurtry and Shawn Colvin.
Kerrville, Welcome Home... again.
I'll tell you a not so funny, funny story. Last week I was doing a private home concert and the host asked me what my most embarrassing moment on stage was. The conversation started because I was showing her how to burp while your singing. Ya, I know—that's gross. We were just having fun.
I told her that I have had so many uncomfortable moments that they are hardly uncomfortable anymore. First, I told her the story of the time where I was way overweight and very self-conscious about it. This was in my teens. I got this coveted gig, and at that time, I played in an acoustic band, so we always sat on stools.
The bar gave me a stool, and while I was in the middle of pouring my guts out on an emotional song.. the stool broke. I fell. But not in a normal way. I had just bought a guitar, so my instinct was to protect it. so I fell ass first in a very undignified manner. Like a fat baby from the womb. 50 people broke out in laghter, and there was giggles the rest of the show. it was horrible. I still had thirty minutes to go.
Song #2: Starless Stardust Night, played here live with Philp Taylor at Taylor Bros. Studio
There were some other funny stories. Of course, the old vomit on stage story. The good o'l favorite falling off the stage story. The gut-wrenching breaking the 4,000 guitar on stage, starting a fight on stage, diarrhea on stage, the drunken blackout rage on stage.. and so on.
Watch closely and you can see the moment the heart breaks
That was not the worst though. The worst one for me personally, at least the worst one to get over was in 2016 at Kerrville. Yes, I was a finalist here two years ago. I already filled in the context, a 20-year desire, it was a big deal to me. There were about 300 or more in the crowd. I was all worked up for this one moment when you play your two songs for the judges. I was confident, I was rehearsed, more ready to kill it on stage than ever in my life.
A nice past contestants came backstage and gave us a speech about humility. I get that. I'm all about humility. But, in my head, I was thinking, man... I know humility. 80% of my nutrition intake last year was cheap spaghetti with that awful bottom shelf sauce! (you got to use a lot of hot sauce and parmesan cheese—that's the secret) If someone is not humbled to be in his 40's after having his ass kicked in music for 26 years, now playing with most people in their early 20's and 30's... believe me I'm humble!!!! Or so I thought. I guess humility is like bacon, you can always fit a little bit more on your plate. (I see now even those thoughts precluded me from a claim ofr humility in music haha.)
So I went out. I failed to mention, I had had an issue with my guitar the night before. So I did the right thing. I called my guitar tech and we fixed it over the phone. But right there, before the show... I suddenly did not trust that guitar. Maybe I didn't fix it right. That's okay. I had purchased a cheaper spare right before the show because I had sold my back up a few months before to finish some project.
So I go out with a brand new, untested I might add, guitar. Walk up to the mic. Big intro, big applause. I plug up say hi to the crowd. And go to check my guitar. And you guessed it .. it didn't work.
So we fiddled with it. No deal. I got nervous and ended up telling this long drawn out story. I looked over and the stage hand is giving me the shut up and play signal.
Song #1: Complicated Man from my new album, 'You' - Ezra Vancil
Long story short.. my big moment on a big stage at Kerrville was sung acapella. They brought out a mic for the guitar... but I have never played live with a mic'd guitar in all my life. I have an issue with that because I move all over the place, unconsciously. So, according to those I knew in the crowd, there really was no guitar going on... just long stories and booming acapella vocals.. with an occasional spike of the guitar when I swung madly across the path of the microphone.
Back Home
Welcome home is something they say at Kerrville. And if you go there.. you will know why. It starts to feel like home after about 24 hours. And I'm back. A Finalist yet again this year. And guess what? I really am more humble. I thought I was two years ago. But I really was still doing things for self-gain that just is not cool to me now, just two years later. It wasn't just Kerrville that brought on a new perspective.. it was actually a few deaths, a suicide of someone close to me... something about the tragedies of the last few years kicked my ass hard. It made me really, finally after all these years, play music just for the sheer love of it with no additives. I'm glad to be alive. Glad to have the opportunity to play my songs.. how great is that just by itself!!
I see young'ns all the time that walk like gods upon the earth. I used to be like that when I was young.. thought I was the hottest shit in town. Wouldn't listen to anyone about anything but what I wanted to hear. Some of it is fear.. us trying to act like we think we should. Worrying that we will be taken advantage of again, which happens about every month in a young musicians life. I think of saying something. Something like.. "_hey take it easy man.. Your good. But, there is really nowhere to go but right here. Nothing to prove to us; but to yourself... there is plenty." But I think it's kinda useless.. I would not have absorbed that friendly communication at all in my early days. I was lost in a reality that I wanted to become... I was just trying to become it before it was even close to a reality. I was afraid much of the time. I had a lot of fear. A lot of wounds. Crippling self-consciousness shit-ass-beatings after every encounter. I felt taken advantage of constantly.So, I know .. it's hard for a young mind to see like an old weathered mind. Maybe even impossible (for most).
As they say: Life has its way. It has something to teach us. And, it WILL teach us just that. The question is always: will I listen? If I listen—If so, then, and only then, can I probably move on to the next lesson. If I will not listen though, then I can expect the same lesson in a rotating hamster wheel until I do.
That is the essence of humility I think... listening, applying and accepting life's lessons. Right-sizing yourself to the actual reality you live in and not the one you want to live in. Have I found more humility? I think so..I'm most assuredly humbled they picked me again. Yet, that's another thing about humility... you really don't know at which floor you're at on the elevator until the doors open.
Thanks for reading. I'll update Steemville on Kerrville soon. I added the songs that one the spot in the post above. Let me know your thoughts and thank you for your support!
I'm Ezra Vancil, a songwriter and performing artist from Dallas, Texas. Follow me
