I can think of few things that both scare me and thrill me at the same time as perfoming. I am usually a wreck during my first song. (One of the hardest things in the world for me to do is to do a one-song-only spot!) After the first round of applause, I begin to feel better at ease. In fact, unless the lighting is too bright, I am able to relax enough to actually look at some of the individual faces in the audience. That usually happens during the second song. It is then that I am able to get a reading on how well (or if) I am connecting with the audience. If the connection is there, then the door is open to the possibility of ensuring that the audience is completely focused on me. That, in turn, gives me the focus I need to (I hope) take the audience where I want it to go.

Yes, there is power in that. But the power is simply a reflection of the energy given by the audience. If they aren't focused enough to give that energy, then I feel powerless.

By the way, I fully expected to be totally awful on the Mudcat Radio show (see June 21). I have never been on a radio show before and was almost certain that without direct audience feedback, I would flop. Perhaps a saving grace was that there were quite a few people in the studio that night and so I played to them, for the most part. I don't know how I might have done if I were simply playing to a microphone.