The Road to Oslo – Part 5 My First Performance on Main Stage

Last weekend it finally happened – my first performance on main stage at Oslo Ukulele Festival. If you’ve read the whole series about the Road to Oslo, you already know what got me here, so I just want to focus on how it went now.

My performance was scheduled on Saturday at 17:05. I was nervous, but in a good way this time. When I was playing open-mic at GNUF this year, I was so nervous that I felt almost paralyzed. But this time it was a good nervous, an excited nervous, an I want to get on stage and give a great show nervous.

I’m not sure why but I think the atmosphere at the festival and the loving people there had a lot to do with that.

I was up right after the Oslo Ukuleleorkester. They did a fantastic job and had the crowd warmed up really good. So when they were done it was time for a quick soundcheck. Tbh, this was one of the things that I was most scared of, because I’d never done a soundcheck before and was not quite sure how to behave like a pro ;). However, the soundguys were really nice as well and set up everything for me. So all I had to do was do some strums, sing some notes and see if I can hear myself well enough. So no worries there.

After soundcheck I tried to set up tripod and phone so I could record my performance. It was a bit tricky with seating, and stage and getting it in the right format for IGTV, so the angle is a bit weird.

As soon as the camera was rolling it was showtime. Stine, the organizer of the festival, announced me and it was time to hit the stage.

After I finished “Monkey Monkey Elephant” I went off stage, because my planned setlist was over and I was sure that my 30 min slot was over too. Turns out, I played all of the songs a bit faster and didn’t talk as much. So there was some time left and they let me play my planned encore “Rainbow Connection”. However, I already stopped the camera, so no video.

I know that there were some mess-ups on stage – some wrong chords, some forgotten lyrics – but I left the stage super happy and content to do it again soon.

xoxo Nikky