Ed Kowalczyk Quotes

When I tour with the new album, I still do the classics, and I love the atmosphere it creates with the whole audience singing along.

It's great to be able to get up there now and do an hour or 75 minutes of songs they're familiar with.

I can't understand artists that don't want to perform and, like, get on stage and do their songs for all their fans every night.

The most amazing thing is being onstage and watching the audience sing every song lyric for lyric.

There is nothing like the buzz of singing one of your songs during a show and hearing your fans singing with you.

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

I always use the Rolling Stones as the whipping boy for this, but they still play old songs as 90% of their set, and we would die if that were the case.

We'll go out and we'll be playing in front of 15,000 people and say, 'Hey, we're going to do three new songs from something we just recorded' and 5,000 people get up and go get a hot dog and a beer and they don't come back until they hear the opening strings of 'The Joker' or 'Fly Like an Eagle.'

It's so special to meet people after the show, getting that connection during the actual concert. It creates a stronger bond.

I think a show is more of an interacting with fans than you just singing songs.

When you make records, you gotta think about what's going to be happening at the concert.

I especially like the songs Hurry Up and The Curse Of Castle Dragon, and I often include them in my live show.

I tend to like the heavier things, especially live on stage. I need that energy and interaction and feeling the audience.

I can play whatever I want and play whatever the fans want to hear. I don't have to be like a salesperson up there talking about my CD through the whole show.

The first tour an artist does is a strange one... because you can never tell how the audience is going to react.

I want to entertain my audience. I know when then come and see me play, if I don't do 'Swing Town,' 'Jet Airliner,' 'Take the Money and Run,' 'True Fine Love,' 'Fly Like an Eagle,' 'The Joker,' blah blah blah - if I don't do all those songs, they'll be extremely disappointed. I love to do them.

You can't manufacture the feeling of being in a small crowd and connecting on every single level to the very last person in the very last row in the back. I think when you evolve into a headlining act and things get bigger, the intimacy and some of that energy gets lost a little bit.

It's always fun to see fans getting into the rhythm, enjoying our performance, and seeing them sing along with us!

I try to do a lot of direct contact with the audience, because the audience is part of the concert, too, as much as anyone on stage, and it's a shame not to get to meet them if you get the chance.

Of course, I love the arenas; there's a great deal of energy and excitement playing those kind of shows. But there's something that's very intimate and very special about a small venue, where you really feel like you're almost getting to know everyone in the audience.

Somebody told me about a band that works out their whole set as if it was one song. They learn the whole set as one piece, so they know how the dynamics of it work. It's really difficult to do, and you can only really do it while you're on tour, as being in a rehearsal studio is not the same as being on stage in front of an audience.

I remember when I was a kid and I used to go and see Queen play live. It was like there was Queen the album band, and then Queen the four dudes on stage playing the songs on stage, and it never lacked anything to me when it was just the four dudes playing the big songs.

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!

When I was a kid and went to shows, my favorites were Live Events. You really see a performer's personality on Live Events than on TV.

Some of my friends really rock out: Matt and Kim, Diplo, when RuPaul was performing. Beyonce... there's tons of people I saw perform and was like, 'I just want my crowd to be awesome like this!'