Nick Cave Quotes

Onstage, of course, you have the luxury of rehearsal and discovery and time and comfort, which then turns into terror when you actually have to put it in front of people.

When you get onstage, you can see everyone in the audience's face, down to the detail. You can see who may or may not be yawning.

There's some anxiety the 30 minutes before the show starts. But once you step on stage and face the people, everything goes away, and you have fun and enjoy the audience.

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.

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.

For any performer who's coming up, if they really want to test their psychology and how they handle themselves on stage, then coming to the U.K. as a whole is a wonderful place for that.

It's one thing to practise in front of a mirror at home, but another to do it in front of 800 people or on live TV.

When I am on stage, I am often thinking about what I will eat after the show.

Very few people know what it's like being onstage looking out at a sea of bodies.

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

Some people can sit down and write a song, but they can't go on stage like I can.

I'm just not made for that kind of live audience where you don't create a fourth wall.

I feel like you've gotta be able to get up every night in front of a live audience. Whether it's 10 people or 50 people or a hundred people, whether you're in a rock band or doing the comedy circuit.

As soon as you just walk through the curtains and the crowd's there, everything's good after that.

There might be two or three songs I'm trying out. I've been singing these songs (on the new album) in the studio, but I haven't really done them live. It's intimate to sing them in a studio. Now, I've got to be on a stage and be in front of a lot of people.

I got on stage and I went, "Oh wow. No stage fright." I couldn't do public speaking, and I couldn't play the piano in front of people, but I could act. I found that being on stage, I felt, "This is home." I felt an immediate right thing, and the exchange between the audience and the actors on stage was so fulfilling. I just went, "That is the conversation I want to have."

When you're in front of an audience, you know if it didn't work. I get very nervous and have a fear of failure that is much more profound than in the podcast world.

I've always felt kind of safe on stage, protected. I've talked to other performers about this and they feel the same things, particularly in the live arena. I never get nervous going on stage to do a play. Doing film or television I'll have more butterflies.

I get really nervous right before I go on stage. But once I'm performing, I always love it. It's like being in a different world.

It's good to do stand-up. It kind of wakes you up and makes you feel like you're doing something. You got the crowd right there. That's all fun.

Tomorrow night I appear for the first time before a Boston audience - 4000 critics.

There's a side to being in a band that some people embrace and some don't: the fact that you're performing and you care about how it comes across.

Having to stand in front of an audience and have it be your job to make them laugh, you can't really look to anyone but yourself. It's what you wrote, what you said and how you said it, so it's kind of terrifying, but I liked it. When it goes well, it's the best feeling in the world. When it doesn't go well, it's the worst feeling, but once you get into the rhythm of it, I think it's really fun.

I think on a stage in front of thousands of people is a wildly invigorating and amazing experience, and it requires a certain skill set; then being in the studio, and being curled up in the fetal position under the piano, that requires another skill set.