Chasms – PRESHOW RITUALS

In this Preshow Rituals segment, Shannon Madden of the indie duo, Chasms, share what they do before every show. You can check out their rituals, after the break.

I think the most important thing for Jess and I to do before going out on stage is to be alone together and attempt to reestablish some sort of connection with each other. This isn’t always possible to achieve. We’ve both noticed that if we go our separate ways before playing and then meet in a rushed way back on stage our connection is rusty and a little hard to read each other’s energy, which is a crucial thing for our set. There’s not usually a whole bunch of talking. We just need to share the same space before entering a new one, which is the stage.

I think I used to not understand this or I thought people in bands were trying to be cool or something but now I get that trying to say hello to everyone before a show and have a quality conversation with someone you haven’t seen in a long time before you play can be really difficult to do when you’re trying to meditate on the material and quiet your mind beforehand. For our friends who are in bands and can totally hang out in the venue with everyone right before they play, my hat goes off to them because I’m just not there yet, I need to really just be alone as a unit with the band and then let it out on stage or else I feel like my psyche is in two places at once.

In an ideal setting, Jess and I will be able to sequester ourselves and Jess will do her vocals warm ups and I’ll work on breathing, work on taking in full breaths and letting them out. We both try and stretch and reset before we go out to do the one thing that we feel that we’re here on earth to do.

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