Every room is different. That sounds obvious, but you don't really understand it until you've played a birthday party in someone's backyard, an open-air festival with three hundred people, a packed pub where no one was expecting live music, and a corporate dinner where half the room was on their phones. Every one of those gigs taught me something the previous one didn't.
I've been playing acoustic shows for years now — solo gigs as JP Storm and as the frontman of Six5zero here in Kassel. And the one constant I keep coming back to is this: the size of the room doesn't matter. What matters is whether you're present.
The Room Always Talks Back
When you strip a performance down to just a guitar and a voice, there's nowhere to hide. There's no drummer filling the silence, no keys covering a flubbed chord. It's just you and whatever energy is in that room at that moment. And every room has its own energy — you can feel it the second you walk in.
I've learned to read that energy before I even touch the guitar. Are people mid-conversation? Are they sitting, waiting, nervous? Is there a buzz or a flatness in the air? The first song I choose is never really about what I feel like playing — it's about what the room needs. Sometimes that's something familiar and warm. Sometimes it's something that shakes them a little.
"The first song I choose is never about what I feel like playing — it's about what the room needs."
Silence Is Not Your Enemy
This took me a long time to learn. Early on, I was terrified of silence between songs. I'd rush to fill it with chatter, tune without saying anything, apologise for technical issues nobody had even noticed. Classic nervous energy.
Now I know that silence is part of the show. A breath between songs — a genuine pause where you look up, make eye contact, let the last chord fade completely — does more for connection than any amount of banter. It says: I'm actually here with you. I'm not just running through a setlist.
People can tell the difference between a performer who is performing and one who is actually present. The latter is much rarer, and the audience responds to it in a completely different way.
The Worst Gigs Teach You the Most
I played a restaurant gig once where the sound system fed back for the first fifteen minutes, the staff kept clattering dishes right beside the stage, and exactly one table was listening. One. The rest were on dates, on wine, on their own thing entirely.
I could have phoned it in. Nobody would have noticed. Instead, I played for that one table as if it was the only show I'd ever do. By the end of the night, two more tables had turned their chairs. That was enough.
The gigs where everything goes wrong are the ones that make you a better performer. When your comfort is stripped away — bad sound, indifferent crowd, dodgy stage — what's left is craft and presence. That's all you've got. And that's all you need.
Connection Over Perfection
I've played technically flawless sets that felt hollow, and I've played messy emotional sets that left people in tears. The best version of you on stage isn't the perfect version — it's the honest one.
Acoustic shows have a unique intimacy to them. There's no barrier of production between you and the audience. A cracked note or a moment where you forget the words for half a second — those things are human. People relate to human. They don't relate to a polished performance they can't touch.
After all these years, that's the thing I keep coming back to: just be human up there. The room will meet you where you are.