A lot of good sense from Pip Radish, EKanne and Jim Carroll about (a) knowing the ballad well enough to be able to keep it coherent in the event of distraction or personal fluff, and (b) having faith in the song itself - something I touched on in one of my first posts to this thread. If you don't believe in what you're singing, who else is going to? Conversely, if you very obviously do believe in it, then even a sceptical or disintered audience (that was meant to say 'disinterested' although I have had the disinterred kind as well) can be won over. At least some of them, anyway.

Believing in, and enjoying the songs for their own sake, has carried me through one or two of those hellish gig situations that happen occasionally, where it seems like no-one in the room is interested at all. "This is a great song, and I'm going to enjoy it even if you aren't, you bastards."