Performance anxiety is part of the deal of being a folky musician- something that I live with. For me playing a festival workshop, or bigger gig event, or pub is usually o.k., but the smaller concerts where everyone is totally silent and focused on you, sometimes does me in. The fingers usually work pretty well, until this situation shows up and all of a sudden I can't pick the real good -important licks onstage. I shrug it off afterwards to another one of those experiences, but I'm always ticked off at myself. Sometimes I think I know a song really well that I have sung a thousand times before, and I can pull it off on autopilot - but then I start concentrating a little too much and run right into a mental block which results in entire versus being lost or put in poor order or worse- ending the ditty as fast as I can in order not to prolong the embarrasement. After that freakout onstage, I am a little bit frazzled for the next number too! This is similar to the baseball pitcher who walks the bases loaded with no outs and needs calming down cause the darn manager won't take him out of the game. I'm lucky enough to perform with someone who shares some of these problems at times, and we get to deal with them together on stage (lots of good fun) and try to cover for each other, which helps tremendously.