Well to answer Nick's questions:

"1 Have you ever enjoyed a performance anywhere?"

Yes - the first time I got up on stage to properly "do a song" - just me and a drone - the audience fell totally silent and I knew I was aceing it. It's never been quite the same since. Also I've enjoyed gigs recently where I was just in someone else's backing band and not really been worried about the whole thing.

"2 If you have what made it enjoyable?"

Erm, in the first instance feeling that I'd done myself justice and the audience got it. In the second, not being too worried about whether they did or not, because it was the band leader's neck on the block, not mine. Also possibly having had a drink or two, which is not normally possible as I'm driving.

"3 Are you ever happy with things that you play?"

I often think we sound fantastic in rehearsal when something is really working.

"4 What do you think it is that stops you reproducing that when performing?"

Acoustics for one thing. We rehearse without amplification, usually in a lovely big space with great acoustics. Then you get to a gig and have to wrestle with the PA, mikes, pickups, sound engineers, strange shaped rooms full of people and carpets, people talking etc.

"5 What stops you enjoying performing - is it the being there performing or the things that you are performing?"

I think it's the performing rather than the material. I suppose one of the questions this thread has raised for me is whether I'd enjoy performing more if the material I was doing was less po-faced and miserable. But I've never been good at being amusing in public, so I think that might be worse, and I do like stuff I can put my heart and soul into. The miserable songs are the ones I can relate to.

"Have you being doing this a long time yourself and what sort of places and audiences are you playing?"

Been properly getting up there singing for about six months really (been an occasional gigging musician for a few years), and although we're playing traditional-ish music we're doing it in a weird way and mostly to non-folk audiences (haven't got the contacts on the folk scene). We play regularly at an acoustic club, and here and there on the small indie band circuit.