My “Aha” Moment
People always ask me what my “Aha” moment was - the moment when I knew that I had made it as a musician after jumping into music full time following my 60th birthday. That moment happened in 2018 when my band, Project Grand Slam, performed at the Nisville Jazz Festival in Serbia. The festival takes place annually in the town of Nis, inside a giant fortress.
We had just flown eight hours - with three stops - from Norway, where we had performed at another festival. We landed at midnight at Pristina airport in Kosovo. We were exhausted. At the airport we were met by a representative of the festival. We assumed it would be a short drive to our hotel where we could rest up. But to our complete surprise we learned that it was impossible to go from Kosovo directly to Serbia because the two countries were at war! Instead, the only way we could enter Serbia was through Montenegro, and it was going to be about a seven hour bus ride.
To make matters worse, the roads were winding and pitch black, our driver spoke no English, and there were no rest stops. And at the borders we had to stop and go through immigration and security, which took about an hour each time. We did not arrive in the city of Nis until 7 am. We checked into our hotel but had time only for a shower and a quick nap before we were taken to the festival site for our sound check.
That evening was the culmination of the 3-day festival. There were two side-by-side main stages. As an act was performing on one stage the next act was setting up on the other stage. When the time finally came for us to perform we played our one-hour set. There were about 20,000 people in the audience. Most probably spoke little or no English, and I’m sure very few of them knew the band or were familiar with our music. So it seemed like maybe the odds were stacked against us.
But it turned out to be a magical experience. Right from the get-go the crowd was totally into us - applauding and screaming. As we segued from song to song they were dancing in place and the applause grew louder. When we finished our set we received an amazing ovation from the crowd.
Our singer then asked the crowd if she could take a selfie with the audience and they roared their approval. As we left the stage one of the festival organizers handed me something. It turned out to be a DVD of our performance. They had shot and edited on the spot a video of our entire performance. The fidelity was so good that later on I was able to turn the video into an album that I named “Greetings From Serbia”.
Maybe the best part of all came after we left the stage. To our surprise there was a very long line of people waiting to take a photograph with us and get our autographs. We had a real love-in with these people. It was an amazing experience. It was definitely my rock star “Aha” moment.