Location: L Train platform at Union Square
Time: 6:00PM - 8:50PM
Total earnings: $30.83
CD’s sold: 1
Setlist:
Once Before* (x2)
Cannonball (x2)
Capsized* (x2)
Volcano (x2)
Nectarine*
Fever Dream
Blower’s Daughter
Keep Your Voices Down (x3)
A Fool For You (x2)
Karma Police
Fake Plastic Trees
I Just Want You*
Bizarre Love Triangle (x2)
Submerged*
and about 5 Improvised Songs*
*originals
Crowd: Not bad at all. I was expecting snobby hipsters and jaded commuters but there were actually a lot more people who genuinely listened. Some even took the time to pay me a compliment after they dropped a dollar! That is so un-snide of them.
Overall: Pretty cool spot, although the waiting time between trains gave me about 3-5 minutes to make a solid impression. A huge crowd would gather to wait for the train, then suddenly… no one. I would get about 2 minutes of really intimate quiet before trains started bustling in. It was a challenge to maximize those small pockets, but when the song and atmosphere were right and worked, nothing beats the feeling.
It was my first time playing in a subway and it was nice to not have to deal with wind or cold weather (frost-bitten hands are hard to play guitar with) but I gotta say, I still prefer outdoors. The subway acoustics are conducive but the enclosed space kinda mashes all the noise together so the performance gets jumbled into it. Outdoors, there’s a lot more breathing room for the songs. It was also weird not seeing the daylight fade and not knowing how much time had passed.
Also, I did an ingenious thing. I PACKED A LUNCH. It was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and it literally saved my life. Usually, I get so hungry after playing for so long and I’m stark raving mad with hunger after about the 1-hour mark. And it’s not like I can just leave all my equipment and go buy something, or pack up, buy something, then set up again. But I got to have 5-minute break in the middle for lunch and it made ALL the difference. PB&J, never leave home without it.
