Sean McVerry – PRESHOW RITUALS

In this Preshow Rituals segment, the indie pop artist, Sean McVerry, shares what he does before every show. You can check out his rituals, after the break.

Routines change every day, I’m really grateful when we have a string of days where the schedule is somewhat the same. I’m a person that really lays into a routine when I’m not on tour, so getting a chance for some consistency is always welcomed.

Day of a show I more-likely-than-not will wake up with an immediate “ Did I forget this thing at the venue last night?”, or “ Was the set in the right order last night?”, which usually snowballs into larger existential questions about self and being and the morality of the world. SO. I usually need to run or get some form of exercise as soon as I get up to expunge my early morning anxieties. I really am just a large ball of nerves with a septum ring at the end of the day. If I can sweat a bit in the morning I’ll usually place myself back in reality and map out the rest of the day. As for food, nothing like crazy heavy, plenty of coffee, plenty of water and all that. I’ll drink tea with honey if I think I’m feeling a little raspy, but also try not to really sing very much during the day (unless someone happens to throw on the lion king soundtrack, all bets are off at that point).

I like to get to set up as early as humanly possible to have my rig situated. Since I’m a one-man band currently on this tour, there are a lot of cables, computer things, interfaces etc to be dealt with, and the last thing I want to be worrying about before I step on stage is some wiring thing or technical mishap. The goal is to get on stage and only focus on being present and in the music. Since this has been my first tour as a solo act, I make it a point usually to talk to the sound guys, or promoters and get a healthy amount of schmooze in. Post soundcheck, if there are bananas around, I’ll eat one. I learned once Bananas have a bunch of beta-blockers in them to relax people (very exciting discovery for me since I love bananas). After that, I’ll usually change into “show attire” aka nice clothes, this tour I’m being sponsored by this rad clothing company called Death to Tennis. I’ll make sure I don’t look like a crazy person then I’ll pace around with a beer until I get word that I’m on. At that point I drink a vial of goat’s blood then we are ready to go!

…last part is made up.

Keep up with the artist on his website!

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