A Quote by B. B. King

I look at an audience kind of like meeting my in-laws for the first time. You want to be yourself, but you still want to be somebody that they like. When I go on the stage each night, I try my best to outguess my audience.
Every time I go on stage, it's like a first date. I put on my best clothes, shave, and get as handsome as I can. Then I say the cutest things I know to say, and I become the very best Bill Medley I can be because I want to win my date over. My audience is the date that I want to impress every time.
Well, besides being entertained, I’d like to move them emotionally. I mean I really want to uplift them. I want to look down at the audience, and this is personal experiences now I’m going to tell you. It’s like you look down at the audience and see people smiling, crying, hugging each other. I want them on their way home to feel empowered like they can do anything.
If I'm meeting somebody for the first time, I don't look them up on Wikipedia, or I try not to, because I would not want somebody to be thinking they knew me based on that. It's like even private citizens have to deal with this persona phenomenon.
When I'm shooting, really the audience I'm thinking the hardest about is that first test screening audience who I want to like the film and that first opening weekend audience.
My music already has this oldish kind of quality to it, like you don't necessarily know what era it was recorded in, so it all kind of felt surreal and weird. Night after night when I played live, I was really trying to figure it out in real time, and I still don't know what effect I'm going for or what effect I actually achieve. Looking back, I feel like it would be arrogant of me not to appreciate the fact that I've been able to do whatever I want and still have an audience come see me.
Every time you go on stage, you want to prove yourself because you are in front of a new audience.
I don't like the theatre. I like plays in which the audience is addressed by the actors. I don't like seeing people talking to each other on stage as if there isn't an audience.
You play with the audience, and they play back with you. They get into it, and then everybody gets into it. I don't want to be like a monkey on stage and just go through the motions because then it wouldn't be fun anymore. I just pay attention to the audience and appreciate the fact that somebody wants to see us. That gets me psyched.
I'd like to say I don't care, but I do. 'Cause when you put out a record, you try to do it for yourself first, and you want your audience to accept it, but you also want the press to accept it, too, because it validates what you do.
I'm not looking for is the audience going to like it [the film during the first screening] or not. I want to hear somebody try to poke a hole in it. I want to hear why they saw the logic was flawed or why that scene was not believable.
Every night I try to look at the audience and treat every audience differently. It's almost like it's a single entity or a person. I always try to treat it like a conversation and allow it to happen naturally in the same way that you would engage in conversation.
Boxing is what you make it. If you want to make it exciting, if you want to make it something where people are going to look and say, "Wow! Look at the guy. Who does he think he is?" You can do that. If you just want to go in there, punch each other, and then shake hands at the end of the night. You can do that, too. I know what I would rather pay money to see. Some people enjoy it, some despise it. Whether people like it or hate it, they still buy a ticket. We want boxing to be centre stage and you can't have that with guys who don't excite.
For me, every time I step on the stage it feels like a battle is about to start. It's not like we're going on stage to fight against our audience obviously, because for me, when I go on stage, I'm always trying to reach a new level of how am I going to make today a great night for everyone that's present.
What I do try to do is just stay away from other people's work, because they might influence you too much in a level that you don't want to be influenced in. And you don't want to look somebody else, you want to look like yourself.
I never like to play for myself, and that is why I don't own a grand piano. To play for yourself is like looking at yourself in a mirror. I like to practice; that is to work at a task. But to play there must be an audience. New things happen when you play for an audience. You don't know what will occur. You make discoveries with the music, and it is always the first time. It is an exchange, a communion.
I'm an audience member first. My inspiration is still based on hunger. Often, when people try to tell me "nobody wants that story; I'm like bullshit because I want it."
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