And then it hit me...

Being onstage is terrifying. I have a long history of stage fright, and until this year, I frankly avoided the spotlight. From the first song I mumbled out at a church talent show when I was nine years old, I have been struggling to find a way to feel comfortable onstage.

Last week, a jazz singer named Steph Johsnon came to town from San Diego. She and her band were scheduled to play three nights in a row, and my band had been invited to open for her at a friend’s house concert on the second night. Now, one disadvantage of living in a small town is a lack of regular exposure to good music. I can’t go down to Momo’s of a Tuesday night and see a band fresh off the festival circuit, so I was very excited. I decided I couldn’t wait, I had to go see her the first night. And I’m so glad I did.

What I saw that night changed my life as a performer. Steph owned the stage so completely, and with such ease. She was a confident and versatile guitarist. She had a smile on her face every moment of her performance. It was less like seeing a show than it was like watching her hang out in her living room. That’s how easy she was on stage. She joked with us about the local ordinance that doesn’t allow dancing (Footloose, anyone?), she improvised beautifully, she got the audience clapping and singing lines back to her. She told us over and over, either between songs or grooving in a jam, how much she loved each and every one of us. She was larger than life, but in a way that included every person in the audience.

Maybe I smoked a little too much before the show, but I sat in the second row, stone solid for two hours. I had to pee before we arrived, but I held it all the way to the end. I worried that if I left, I would miss some vital lesson on showmanship. I realized, “I can do this. I can be this way onstage. I can make the audience feel what I feel.” I realized, more than anything, that I wanted to make love to an audience the way she did.

And so I did. The next night, we set up on our friend’s back deck in front of eighty people and played our songs, and I felt it. I looked into their eyes and smiled at them and reached out to them and moved my hips and really for the first time felt completely unself-conscious onstage. I got to the end of the bridge of one of David’s jazz songs and I felt tears in my eyes. I was mesmerized by the audience and they were mesmerized by me. It was a deep, spiritual awakening within all of us. And there is no high so sweet as the one I experienced that night.

Make it happen. That's the only way to do it. You've got to get in there and do what you do the way no one else can. We talk about better and best and not-so-good and fair, but these standards don't mean much when it comes right down to a secret moment between you and the audience. In the moment, lives are changed, hearts are touched, people are moved to tears. And they love that. Give it to them.

Another Way To Do It

I started writing songs when I was nineteen years old. They came from nowhere, as they often do, and my reasons for writing were more biological than methodical. You go to the bathroom, you get a better six, you write a song. Since that day, I have very carefully been attempting to sort out what makes a songwriter and what unmakes them, which conventions bind and limit, and which to use over and over again, and how, more than anything else, to keep writing, even when it feels like the last thing you want to do. My theory at the beginning of this journey, is: write about what you love, and you'll never get tired of it. We're going to find out if I'm right.