Jam nights and terrible drumming

On Monday night I played at a local jam night. It's a while since
I've played live and I was looking forward to the opportunity to
stretch out. However, after three songs I was about ready to give up
drumming all together!

Various thoughts went through my head during the songs. I really felt
like I couldn't play - I felt like a complete beginner. There was no
monitoring, so I couldn't really hear a thing I was playing. There
was no PA and I couldn't really hear what anyone else was playing
either. The sound in general was terrible from behind the kit. Also,
I'd been playing on the studio kit for a while and it felt quite alien
to be behind a different set up again. I was using my old Iron Cobra
pedal which was adjusted differently to the Pearl pedal I've been
playing in the studio. To top it all off I was playing songs that I
didn't know (and neither did some of the other musicians by the sound
of it.)

All these are potentially valid excuses. I'm sure that if there'd
been adequate monitoring and I'd spent more time getting my drums set
up comfortably then things would have gone a lot better. But I
couldn't escape the fact that I just felt very awkward. In my head
I'd gone backwards. I'm felt sure that I could have done much better
10 years ago.

After my 3 songs I went and sat in the car to escape. I spent some
time clearing items out of my old todo list app. One of the lists I
had in there was labelled 'Thoughts' and just contained snippets of
ideas I'd picked up from reading various books. The one that caught
my eye said "Avoid using the words 'ought to' and 'ought not to'". It
seemed very pertinent at that moment in time.

Perhaps you never use the word 'ought' at all, but most people at some
point or other say "I should do this" or "I should do that." That
night I found my internal voice saying "I ought to be better after 20
years of playing." It was a thought that I found quite depressing.

On further examination I realised that the statement is essentially
bollocks. I'm exactly as good as I ought to be after the number of
hours I've put into playing. Perhaps that isn't as good as I'd "like"
to be, but that's a different thing.

I also realised that I probably can play. Maybe not as well as I'd
like to be able to, but certainly better than I felt like I did that
night. The problem was partially lack of adequate monitoring, but
more specifically my lack of appreciation for the importance of
adequate monitoring. Essentially what I was doing was the equivalent
of a painter trying to paint with a blindfold on. They're going to be
disappointed with the results.

For future reference I'm either going to have to accept that playing
in that situation is going to make me feel like I can't play, or
remedy it in some way. I certainly could have spent more time setting
up the kit. I could have used the pedal I'm used to. I could have
taken my BC2 drum stool and mic'd the kick. I was just too lazy to do
all these things because I thought they didn't matter. BUT THEY DID.
Not necessarily to the audience, but to me. It's a horrible
experience to feel like you've regressed to being a complete beginner
and it's important to realise that you need to feel comfortable.

I think I'm going to brave the jam night one more time and put these
theories into action. I'll let you know how I get on...