Hope Sandoval Quotes

Live performance is everything. First of all, I have terrible stage fright. But beyond that, once the music starts, it's OK.

From the first time you can look in the paper and you accept that you're the entertainment for some people that night, it becomes so much more enjoyable to play live.

I'd say it's harder to play with an acoustic guitar strapped over your shoulder for a few hundred people than it is to play in front of thousands with an entire bombastic band behind you.

I think I will always be performing; I don't think I can take that away. Because I really just enjoy it. I like getting up to sing; I like the challenge of learning new material and singing it in front of an audience.

If I'm playing a gig in London, it feels so important. The adrenaline rush here is bigger than anywhere else. I kind of like the pressure that London puts you under.

When have you ever heard of a cantor or any artist turning anyone down when he is strongly urged to perform?

Performing live in front of an audience is such a matter of will - all of those things you can do just fine in your basement, suddenly you have to do them in front of hundreds or thousands of people, and it becomes a different matter entirely.

It's fun to write your set list 20 minutes before and keep the crew very much on their toes.

You don't really know a song until you play it live.

There's a pressure regardless of that to do a good show.

The conductor has the advantage of not seeing the audience.

Performing live is easy in front of an audience.

I love performing in front of a live audience and just stepping out in front of ruddy Royal Albert Hall is just something, I can't describe it.

Every time an artiste goes on stage, he thinks 'I hope today goes well and I hope I give my best.' That is important - that little bit of nervousness or tension is what makes you perform better.

Having an audience in the studio makes you perform rather than just act.

When you play a show or festival, people know what they're getting; they want it. Then you're thrown onto a show where people are watching TV in their houses, and whether they ask for it or not, we're being played in front of them. There's a lot of negative feedback.

Television is very instant. Theatre is much more free, but you are very much on your own up there on stage and in control of your own performance.

I stand on stage hoping to give good energy to the audience, but if I cannot give good energy anymore, I will have to leave right away.

When I perform live, I'm doing a lot, but I kind of black out. I don't think about it too much.

It's hard to solo when you're walking around, especially when you're in Michael Jackson's presence. There are easier things in life to do.

It's not so much that I don't enjoy playing live - that's one of the best parts of playing music - it's that it's nerve-racking with 300, 500 people watching.

When I play on stage, I have to drink a glass of water.

I have been up and down the batting order and it's difficult. People don't always realise that.

It used to be enough for me to get on stage and sing. I kind of crave the performance part now. I write knowing it's going to happen, which I didn't do before.

Sometimes I'll go out into the crowd and keep singing, but I'll get maybe seven rows out and I'm out of synch, I'm a couple seconds behind the band and then it becomes chaos.