A Quote by Richard Lewis
When you do something in the moment, it may just be for that stage, that audience, that head space that you're in.
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Once I threw a water bottle from the stage into the audience, and it hit Tony Bennett in the head. It was a special moment for me.
You're about to walk on stage and play together for the next few hours so you want to feel connected and make sure that everyone is in the same head space; a good head space.
We're always in that head space about the audience and less about us at that moment.
You feel the communion of the collective consciousness in that moment when you're on stage doing something and the audience is absolutely with you. And the audience becomes a collective entity as well. They come in from separate places and socio-economic backgrounds, and places across the world and days that they've had, and then they come together and they become one collective thing, and experience something in a collective way.
It's an incredible thing when you are creating something in a moment with the other people on stage and with an audience, and you are all experiencing it together as it exists in that one night. It's a magical feeling.
When I'm on stage, my interaction with the audience is something that really makes me come alive. It's a feeling like no other. The energy of the crowd fuels something new inside. It reminds me to live in the moment.
There can be moments onstage - but sometimes in a movie, too - where you just feel you're in a golden space. You're in this strange world where everything you do makes sense. And it's funny: the audience is right in it with you, and the other actors, and you get these rare moments of feeling at one with something. You hear voices in your head.
I can feel how an audience is reacting when I'm on a stage, but when you are on stage, your perception is distorted. That's something you just have to know. It's like pilots that fly at high Gs and they lose, sometimes, consciousness and hand/eye coordination and they just have to know that that's going to happen. They have to be trained to not try to do too much while they are doing that. So when you are on stage, you have to be aware that you are wrong about how it feels a lot of times.
When I'm the speaker, I know that special moment [just before speaking] is the only time I will have the entire audience's full attention. Unless an alien spaceship crash-lands on stage midway through the talk, the silence before I begin is the most powerful moment I have. What defines how well I'll do starts with how I use the power of that moment.
I don't feel I'm fighting to reach this huge audience; it just happens. I go on stage before the audience arrives and look out to this vast empty house. There's something therapeutic about taking in the ring where you'll perform.
I remember doing a lot of comedy. I always loved that feeling when you do something on stage and you can feel the vibe of the audience turn, and they start laughing. It's how you know something's not right, and how to fix it, or how to make the moment stronger or funnier.
Every audience is different, even within the same venue. You have to just make every audience your audience; you can't pre-judge an audience based on the size of the room or the type of room. You've just got to be in the moment and go with it.
I do all the things that singer-songwriters do. I introduce the songs, I have a story to tell about everything all the time - I cannot be on stage and have something on my mind without telling the audience. I'm super emotional and expressive and vulnerable in that moment.
You find there's no magic trick, sometimes in the shower, sometimes you're just lying in bed calm, sometimes you're just enjoying life and just have a notepad, it's never far away. Always have a notepad on you, because you never know what's going to happen, take a moment and write it down the minute that comes in your head. Even if you can't deal with it until later, I've had that experience where I was in a wedding party and I'm on stage, I'm like, "I hope I don't forget this, something just occurred to me."
The distance thing is partially due to the fact that I'm pretty shy and I've struggled with extreme stage fright in the past. So I just have to go onstage in a different head space so I'm not as self-aware.
When a performer goes out on a stage, they may feel the audience is judging every aspect of them and their life. In fact, all that poor audience is doing is waiting to be entertained a little.
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