Mike McCready Quotes

I love storytelling and I love just relating directly to an audience. That's why we do theatre, it's because we love contact with the audience. We love the fact that the audience will change us. The way the audience responds makes us change our performance.

That's one of the good things about music. You get to do it live, where you can touch the people and interact with them.

Music is a performance and needs the audience.

Music is so much fun because each song is like a film in itself. You get to go from beginning to end and interact and exchange energy with a live audience.

The only band I was really over-into was Cream. And the only thing I really liked about them was their live stuff 'cause they played two verses, then go off and jam for 20 minutes, come back and do a chorus and end. And I love the live jam stuff, the improvisation.

There's nothing like performing for a live audience.

Playing live is much more natural for me. The instant reaction and the feedback from the audience is great for me. I really relish it. And if you play blues-based music, it's not really academic music or recital music. It really needs a bit of atmosphere and a bit of interplay and a bit of roughness, and you really get that with an audience.

The greatest feeling in the world is performing and connecting with the audience.

Playing live is really the art form. You're a lot freer, a lot looser. You've got people there that can give you feedback, and then you can play off of that. There's so much more energy.

The music comes alive when you actually perform it in front of a crowd.

I feel my live shows are my music; everything blossoms from the live shows.

Musicians are there in front of you, and the spectators sense their tension, which is not the case when you're listening to a record. Your attention is more relaxed. The emotional aspect is more important in live music.

The best part of touring, still, is touching people's hearts and igniting my band and igniting the people into what you call a spiritual revelation is sound and emotion.

When I started out playing small clubs, you could feel the room recoil from certain kinds of songs. Anything that was too personal, that had a sentiment to it, or was laying out your feelings, was immediately booed. People would start throwing things. And anything that was really provocative or humorous or radical was embraced or cheered.

There's nothing to compare to live music, there just isn't anything.

I think it's fun to play for people who don't know what you do.

I prefer that for my own satisfaction over radio, there's no audience. TV, there's no audience. I need the response of the audience, even if it's a silent response.

It's hard to beat the visceral high of playing live and creating something spontaneous.

I think any actor would agree that you can't replace theater. It's immediate. You have the energy of the crowd and every single night it's different.

When the band would leave the stage, and then the audience would just take over, and keep the groove goin'.

I just feed off the energy of the audience.

I really enjoy creating music onstage, to participate in making music live.

I love the intimacy of venues like the House of Blues. When everyone is packed in and so close to you, it makes you play differently. It's so much more fun to play because there's so much more high energy in a place like that.

At its best, a live show is completely transcendent. The image I get is breaking through glass or shooting out into the free zone.

There's nothing better than live music. It's raw energy, and raw energy feeds the soul.