Thurston Moore Quotes

When playing any song in front of an audience, you're watching them experience it, and it changes. In a lot of ways, it's almost like the music is just the background buzz to what's happening between you and the audience in the room.

Performing music live, there's a certain magic to it.

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.

What I try to get beyond is playing music at people and, instead, to play music with people because audience members are constantly part of the experience. What they say in their body language, what they say in their eyes, what they sing with me... it's an 'us,' and there's a communication that's like... it's like church, man.

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.

I appreciate an audience that reacts to the music, even if they jump on stage and try to beat us up, I think that's a fantastic reaction. I think that they're really hearing something then.

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

I enjoy being on stage with other artists. I have a chance to watch and see people responding to the other artists songs. I get to see how people are affected by the music.

Playing live is such a total visceral experience, and really, as a musician, you're trained from the beginning to be a live performer.

In those days a concert was a personal experience. I wanted to be as close as possible to the audience, and of course big stadiums didn't enable you to do that. It wasn't my style.

Immediate, simultaneous connection between the audience and a performer is crucial to me. It's why I do what I do. Other things, like recording, are satisfying, but they're not the same. I love the connection I get with the audience when I'm sitting behind that piano.

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.

Performing live is the greatest high in the world. That's why I do what I do.

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.

One of the advantages of playing in a club is that even with bass and drums, the atmosphere remains intimate with the audience.

When you see a band, you want to see characters.

We've had the good fortune of performing to live music a few times in our career and it always creates a different dynamic.

I like to see other bands, and I like to hear their songs, but I really like it when they engage the audience.

With Dream Theater live, I may have been a bit of a focal point because I absolutely live for the energy on stage, and having interaction with the audience is absolutely crucial to me - regardless of how some others have described it!

I think that anybody can go home, put the record on, and listen to it note for note, but there's very little entertainment value in that, I believe. When you give people something visually entertaining to watch along with presenting the music, I feel it makes it a lot more interesting.

I listen mostly to live music, and mostly my musical experience was playing music with other people.

Compared to what they were, rock concerts now are like business meetings.

Feeling emotionally connected to a song, and accumulating every bit of the moment's energy to sing out to the audience is what I believe makes a great performer.

I love watching live shows from different artists from different stages of their lives. I'm always interested in the mastery of the live performance.