Yes, everybody who does it professionally (or semi pro) is what you call a "performance junkie". I don't know why you have to give it such a negative sounding handle though - it's just a matter of people doing what they enjoy and putting up with some discomfort or inconvenience for the pleasure of doing it. You might as well say there are singaround junkies or session junkies - much less of the buzz of performing and you don't even get paid for it... why bother? (rhetorical question)

If you do it full time for a living it's very hard work and you have to be a real addict!

As for being away from home and family - I don't think Mary and I would enjoy travelling all over the country if we weren't travelling together, and our musical life dominates our waking hours away from the day jobs so we aren't leaving much behind - but I appreciate that may be different for others.

I haven't reviewed the "Why we Sing" thread recently but there may be are lots of reasons why people like to sing that aren't quite the same as performing.

One of the motivations for me is the "race against time" - we've come into this quite late in life (Mary did only occasional local gigs before we met, and I've never gigged as a solo musician) and part of the fun is that challenge of seeing how much fame and recognition we can get while still basically doing music for fun and before we're too old and decrepit...

Anahata