Currently we are on the road to Oslo, Norway, and just had a whirlwind tour of Eastern Europe. After our stint in the West (France, Amsterdam, Belgium), we traveled to Warsaw, Poland, where we were embraced fully by the Polish people. For the next week, we travelled through Germany from Berlin, to Stuttgart, to Dortmund, to Frankfurt, and finally to Hamburg in the north. The Germans were all incredibly nice, and accommodating, and their countryside and cities were beautiful. Once again, we were merely flash tourists and only got glorified glimpses of every city, but it was still an incredible experience.  

Tonight, we just finished up our show at the Tap 1 in Copenhagen, Denmark.  At this point we have played 18 shows for this tour, so our set and production is spot-on. As a performer, the performance is now essentially second nature. It is as simple as breathing, and just as satisfying.  Most stuff on stage is scripted: pyro blasts on song 6 on beats 1 and 4, confetti cannon in this song, this color lighting here, smoke machine here, talk about fans here, etc.  In a way, it is all comforting in it’s familiarity after so much time.  You know what to expect – or at least what should happen.  Occasionally things will go off the beaten path, and it is both exhilarating, but stressful too.  Not to sound cliche, but the saying goes: “Life is what happens when you are planning for something else.”  I for one, have never been the easiest to adapt to change, or a fan of it.

For the past couple of years I’ve had this one recurring dream that comes to me every so often.  In the dream, I find myself in a theater which is putting on a production of some show, play, etc. and I’m about to go on stage but have no idea what my lines are, what the script is, what I’m supposed to be doing, or anything.  I never am able to find a script, and I wake up just before I walk on stage to my demise in front of an audience. The dream always leaves me uncomfortable/panicked, and with the feeling, that I’m completely without any control; at the mercy of the stage, without any path to follow.

Sometimes finding a path that makes sense is hard. Just a couple of weeks before I joined up with Macklemore and Ryan Lewis on their world tour, or even had an inkling that I would be a part of this journey, I was working at a record label for three years as an A&R Manager, and thought I would be a lifer – that I had finally found my calling in business and music.  However, music, my art, my arranging, and my own career as a musician finally became more than just a hobby, and pulled me in a different direction. This was both an exciting prospect, but also terrifying.  I finally was about to take on a stage without any script.

Strangely enough, an epiphany struck me while we were wrapping up our last show in Germany, in Hamburg at the O2 World Arena.  As the show came to a close in our epic finale, Ben came up to me and said, tonight was my time to stage dive. This was obviously unscripted, and for a split second it made me panic. I had to pull off my inner-ear monitors so I wouldn’t lose them, put down the violin so I didn’t break it, take out my wallet, etc. A literal checklist flashed through my mind.  Time was ticking, however, and I needed to act fast to make it in time for the stage dive.  If I hesitated, the perfect moment would pass, and it wouldn’t make sense for me to jump into the audience anymore.  Finally, I just ran and jumped.

Even when you don’t have a script, or a path to follow, what really helps guide you is gut instinct, and just trusting that where you are led is where you need to be. When you see the opportunity, just leap, and trust you will land.  Who knows, maybe if you let go and do a trust fall (with the possibility that you could break your neck), you will fall into the waiting hands of 13,000 fans.