Richard McCabe Quotes

I'm too nervous to eat before I go onstage, and I'll usually eat out after the performance or when I get home at midnight.

Yup, the toilet is my best friend before a show.

The night before a show, I don't sleep. Really. I've been doing this for 30 years, and the night before a show, I still don't sleep.

I'm used to being nervous for shows in general.

I get kinda nervous before every show.

Frankly, seeing my plays with an audience is something I do with gritted teeth; I find the experience very difficult. I love the moment when you have just the dress rehearsal, when no one's there; that's kind of the peak to me. When people start filing in, I like to file out.

I have to be careful what I eat before going onstage, to avoid an upset stomach.

All these years later, I have almost no memory of the shows themselves. It's a blur. I remember my jogging runs better - that was my way of getting my energy together. I used to try to get to the arena as late as possible; otherwise, I'd just be pacing around, waiting to go on.

And when I perform on my own tour, I have to talk myself into going out on that stage every single night.

Well, just coming off the stage and there's like 180,000 people out there and your adrenaline is going so high, and you're doing so much and it's hard to just put your head on the pillow and sleep because it just goes on and on, even after you're off the stage.

Never eat spinach just before going on the air.

I'm never in the mood to eat or drink when I get to a show. I'm just too nerved out.

That's a curious paradox that I don't think a lot of people out there know; that you get really scared before you go on. You come out in a nervous rash, and it's not like you actually love getting up there and showing off.

Stage fright is not a thing about 'Am I any good?' It's about 'Am I gonna be good tonight?' It's a right-now thing. It helps me. If I went out there thinkin', 'Eh, we'll go slaughter 'em,' I'm positive something would go seriously wrong.

If I have a gig in the evening, I get 'the doom' at about 5 P.M., when I think I'm getting flu.

I want to feel lucky every night when I go onstage, and not feel like, 'Oh, great, here we go again.

I remember playing the Royal Albert Hall, and a guy would say, 'Ten minutes to stage time,' and I'd get so nervous.

Nothing feels worse than having to break the stage down before the performance, and I mean nothing.

When you're on stage you have a very strange knowledge of what the audience is. It isn't exactly a sound - it's a hum, like the streets.

I don't agree with superstitious routines, but there are a couple of things I'll always do before performing. I'll get together with the band and chill out, and then, just before I go on stage, I'll always check my flies.

No matter what - rehearsed, under-rehearsed, over-rehearsed, doubts about rehearsing - the first gig is always the first gig, and you put on your little praying hat, batten down the hatch, and do what you do.

I always feel a little funny being in front of a lot of people trying to show them my approach to the ukulele, but I do enjoy it. I do get a little more nervous doing workshops rather than performing.

I tend to do yoga before I go on stage, so that keeps me nice and calm.

I used to get so carried away while I was on stage that I'd be physically damaged by the end of a concert.

This accident, or incident, happened in the most secure place I could have felt I was in: Walking onstage with my guitar, you know?