The Bat
During one outdoor concert, I was midway through my concert when I looked down and noticed an unusual dark liquid on the white keys of my keyboard.
I'm always amazed at how my brain functions when I'm performing a song. One part of my brain is focussed on singing in tune. Another part of my brain is focused on playing the right notes on my keyboard or piano. Yet another part of me is focussed on the crowd - are they connecting with the song? An additional part of my brain is focussed on my band or other musicians who are accompanying me. And then there's the part of my brain that is focussed on remembering the lyrics to the song (people have questioned whether this part of my brain is working at all).
It surprises me that there is a completely separate part of my brain, disconnected entirely from the intricacies of the music that I am performing. That's the part of my brain that can calmly critique what that lady in the moo-moo dress could possibly have been thinking in choosing to wear that out in public. Or whether that couple in the fifth row are having an argument. It's the part of my brain that will tell me what I'd like to eat at the end of the show, even while at the same time I am singing with my whole being. It analyses seemingly endless cues that are happening around me, despite me singing with all my heart and giving all my energy to a performance.
In this moment, I found this detached part of my brain starting to do a full breakdown analysis of the identity, substance, cause and effect of this strange dark liquid which was situated on my keyboard, and which was now also starting to cover the ends of my fingers.
The liquid seemed pretty thick, and in the partial light I saw that it was kind of an indigo colour. As I played, my brain started to try and work out what the liquid was, and how it had arrived on my keyboard in the middle of a song.
Ink! It looked just like ink. I remembered some children running around near my keyboard before I started to play. They must have thrown a leaky pen onto my keyboard! Those pesky kids!
As I continued to sing, now moving my fingers down the octave to play out of this inky substance, and yet spreading it from my fingers across my whole keyboard, it dawned on me that there was way more liquid here than would usually be found in any pen.
After a mental risk assessment, I finished the song and announced to my audience that we'd be taking a short break. As the hubbub of the crowd started up in conversations, I looked down a bit more closely at this strange goo on my keyboard and my fingers.
"Those fruit bats sure are annoying!" I heard someone say, gesturing towards my keyboard.
It turned out that my keyboard was covered in fruit bat poo - a thick, black-blue liquid. The detached portion of my brain had definitely not taken that into account.
As I examined it more closely, I could see it all over my keyboard. More than half the white notes on my keyboard were now indigo. I imagined it seeping down each key and into the inner workings of my keyboard electronics.
I managed to borrow some nappy wipes and did my best to clean my keyboard from all this fruit bat digestive matter. I also spent some attention on removing as much as possible from my fingers and under my fingernails.
A few minutes later and I announced the beginning of the next set of songs and continued the concert.
On that tour, I was travelling in a motorhome and the keyboard was shoved up into the cavity above the driver’s cabin. It also happened to be the space where my tour co-driver, Mark, would sleep beside my keyboard. I’m sure that he had no lasting effects. Surely.
