Jeff Lynne Quotes

Performing live was something that I had to really work at.

My ideal setting is I walk from the streets, backstage, and straight onto the stage. Two minutes, and I am on the stage. That way, in my head I have gone from my world and then into a social setting with my friends.

I think generally playing live is a crap idea. So much of stage work is the presentation of personality, and I've never been interested in that.

The best shows I play, I almost don't even remember off the stage.

If you can play well in the studio, you can play well on stage.

When I started performing in public, I was probably around 10 or 11.

Playing for someone else's crowd is always difficult for any band.

I know it sounds silly, but it takes some time getting used to all the cameras in your face. I think it's like playing jazz. After I learn the rules, I can have fun and play a little bit.

There's no real preparing at home for stand-up. You just go and you just do it.

I just learned my lyrics and tried not to bump into the trumpet player. That was my philosophy.

I know what it feels like to walk out in front of a sold-out crowd of a thousand people that are there for you, and how good that feels, but as an opener, you just have to train yourself to think that it's going to be harder.

If you have a recital to do, you have to memorize the songs. I never use music when I do recitals. It produces an instant barrier, both for yourself and the audience.

If you're not doing something right, you can feel it on stage, and if it isn't going well, the audience will tell you. A teacher can teach you sense memory and this and that, but until you get in front of an audience, you don't really feel it.

I really do like being on stage. Compared to television I have a lot more control - it's a lot more relaxed and loose.

I wrote 'Torches' before experiencing touring as a band. I really had no idea what they would sound like live, and that was something we had to figure out along the way.

Being a growing entertainer, period, you're going to always have struggles. I'm still trying to learn how to even perform right onstage.

My first couple shows, I figured I should be playing the guitar and singing. That felt weird, but I got good at it pretty quick, and I learned my songs and how to play them.

Getting onstage and trying out all of my material and what works well with audiences and what doesn't, what works well in different atmospheres, has been the best training.

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.

There is one thing that freezes a musician more than the deadliest physical cold, and that is the spiritual chill of an unresponsive audience!

I've always loved Broadway, but I never thought I'd actually do it because I was never a full Broadway dancer. And I don't have a big, booming voice.

The more you perform and get out there, I guess the more practice you have at it and the better you are and the more comfortable you are on stage.

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.

We seem to do better in the studio than we do in a live environment.

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