It took a while to get to me but I finally saw the clip of the twin brothers listening and reacting to Phil Collins’s “In The Air Tonight” for the first time. If you haven’t seen it yet I promise it’s worth it:
“I ain’t never seen nobody drop a beat 3 minutes into a song!”
What a great video. It’s so joyful and fun that it brought tears to my eyes, and I started thinking about all the times I’d experienced something for the first time, too.
I remember seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time when I was a freshman in college. My friend Angela took me to Santa Monica and laughed while I stood spellbound as the water rushed over my bare feet. I was transfixed by the sheer enormity of the water meeting the sky at the horizon, something I hadn’t experienced before growing up in the midwest.
I remember seeing the 20th anniversary showing of “E.T. the Extra Terrestrial” for the first time back in 2002. It blew me away. I’d never seen anything like it. I put the poster on my wall and would stare at it every day, dreaming about the universe, movies, and everything in-between.
I remember the first time I came to Chicago. I was here for a few theater school auditions and spent a couple days exploring the city. I went shopping at Macy’s, walked along the river downtown, and went to a fancy steakhouse. It was the quintessential small-town-kid-visits-the-big-city story. I’d never seen buildings so tall or taxis drive so fast. Come to think of it - I hadn’t really seen a taxi before. It was fantastic.
The list goes on and on. The first time I went overseas, the first time I tried sushi, the first time I rode a bike. There’s something utterly magical about that initial experience with something brand new.
I’m always amazed at how often people will approach me after my shows to tell me that I’m the first magician or mind reader they’ve ever seen. My craft is so ubiquitous in my life that it’s easy to forget that many people in my audience are having a brand new experience.
It’s a constant reminder of the responsibility to elevate what I do in the minds of the audience, but it’s also a huge opportunity to gift those audience members with an unforgettable experience of the first time they experienced a live mind reading show.
Everyone has a list of things they remember seeing for “the first time”. The things that make that list are moments that lingered far after they occurred. They’re moments that rattle people to their core and stick with them for years.
As artists we have a choice every time we interact with a new audience: Are we going to be just another blip on the radar of their life experiences? Or, are we going to let them sink their toes into the sand and feel the ocean water rush over their feet for the first time?
I know my answer. What about you?