I'm not too bad in folk clubs. But I recently did a reading at a funeral: 200 people in church. Good pa. Did loads of rehearsals, both before the day and in the church. Knew my way around the technology...

...and yet I was so nervous as my turn came around. The only way I could start to suppress it was to tell myself that I've spoken in front of that size audience before, and I can do it...

...and, of course, it was fine. In fact one person said afterwards that they could have listened to me reading "all day", which made me just as satisfied (under the circumstances: it was a funeral, after all) as with any of my singing gigs.

--
Hamish