In honor of this year being UMusicians third time covering Canadian Music Week, we’ve created a new feature called “My First Show Series”. In this series, we’ve reached out to various artists to recount their very first time playing CMW! Marissa Dattoli of Crystalyne, takes us down memory lane as she recounts the bands first time playing CMW!
CMW has always been one of the most exciting festivals for me as a musician. There are multiple shows happening all over the city at the same time featuring different bands/artists from various genres of music. It’s impossible to know where to start, and every year I attend I find myself bar hopping trying to soak up the total flavour of Canadian music. The best part is that the music that can be heard from one bar to the next is vastly different. It’s such an amazing opportunity for developing bands to be heard by new fans and people in the music industry.
Our band, Crystalyne, has participated in CMW for a few years now. We’ve always had such amazing experiences with it, and I have to say it’s probably the most organized out of all of the festivals we’ve ever played. Having said that, it’s also been the most stressful. There’s a lot of pressure that’s associated with a CMW showcase for developing bands. There’s the pressure to fill the room with people. There’s the pressure to hand pick your best songs to play. There’s the pressure to look the part. And on top of it all, there’s the pressure to sound good. No, wait, there’s the pressure to sound better than you’ve EVER sounded. You never know who will be in the audience, and you’re placed in a situation where you need to stand out. Remember, most of those people in the room have attended multiple shows all week... hek, probably multiple shows that NIGHT. You need to make an impression so that when they walk away from their CMW experience they remember YOU and just how special you are.
I’ll never forget our first CMW showcase. We were set to play at Tattoo Rock Parlour with Eleven Past One and Jesse Giddings. You see, I suffer from anxiety and have this tendency to get really worked up about things. I was fretting over all of the little details, and I really let it get the best of me. About a week before the show, I started feeling really sick. I had massive headaches, a terrible cough, and a stuffy nose. Since it was a week out, I figured that would give me enough time to rest and get better, right? Wrong. As the days passed, I only got worse, to the point where I lost my voice. I couldn’t even make a sound. Maybe what I thought was just a routine cold was something more than that. I remember thinking enough is enough and I went to the doctor. It turned out that I had sinusitis (a sinus infection). The doctor told me these could take WEEKS to fully clear, and sent me home with some antibiotics. I was freaking out. Here I was, barely able to talk, let alone sing, and I had to put on one of the most important performances at one of the most important showcases in our bands career thus far. What was I going to do?!
If my therapist taught me anything, it’s that in life, there are very few things you can control. Cancelling this show was NOT an option. So I sucked it up, called in sick to work for the rest of the week and did absolutely everything I could think of to get better. I drank more water and tea that week than I’ve ever consumed in my entire life. Put a towel over my head and hovered over a pot of boiling water & tea tree oil to relieve my sinuses every couple of hours... I even tried eating wasabi as a temporary fix.
Honestly, I’m not sure that any of it helped because the day of the show arrived and I still sounded like a snuffalufagus. On the plus side, I had a voice for the first time in a week, which was pretty convenient. I remember warming up my voice for hours before we got to the venue and pacing the stage as we were getting ready to soundcheck. Medicated nasal spray in hand, I asked myself a million questions. Was I going to be able to do this? Was my tuning going to be off? Was my voice going to give out? As the intro for our song ‘Secret’ started, my heart was racing and then all of a sudden there it was. My voice, a little sub par, but there it was.
The rest of the show is honestly a blur to me. What I do know, is that I wouldn’t have made it through the night without the constant support and kind words from everyone that was a part of the showcase. The crew, the other bands, our friends and fans, and most importantly, my own bandmates/teammates. After our set I was terrified to go out into the crowd and hangout with everyone, as we usually do after our shows. Preparing myself for the worst, I headed over to our merch table to be greeted by so many smiling faces. Everyone had loved the set and most people didn’t even notice I was sick. A wave of relief washed over me. We did it.
