Fish In the Audience

Tommy Shaw is one of my favorite musicians of all time. He is a quadruple threat: a great guitarist, singer, songwriter, and his baby-faced looks have kept him in the running as a chick-magnet way into his 50's. My buddy, Gary Sadler, had the privilege of meeting him back stage at a recent Styx concert--a band for which Tommy has been playing since 1976. Many of us know his voice from songs such as Too Much Time On My Hands, Blue Collar Man and Angry Young Man. I ran across a web-magazine in which Tommy shed light on the little-talked-about discomfort that affects most musicians when it's their turn to be an audience member.

Many musicians who travel through Nashville say we are the worst audiences on their itinerary. That is because the seats are usually filled with fellow players and singers. Our tendency is to stand there, cross-armed and blank-faced, not giving needed feedback to the performers on stage. Tommy Shaw talked to writer, Allen D. Tate, about an award show where Styx recently performed. Tommy helps make it clear that when we, the musicians, are not on stage, we are at our most vulnerable state--we do better in the spotlight than in the seats:

Having attended enough shows, I have finally come to the conclusion that I am not a lone freak, I am in a class of freaks of artists that just don’t know what to do with themselves from that perspective. Looking out that night at the audience, brightly lit because the event was televised, I could see them all...So there we were starting into “Blue Collar Man” when I looked out and saw them: Artists, musicians, their spouses and dates, their handlers and relatives everywhere, most of them friends...I recognized that look on their faces – awkward helplessness and 'fish-out-of’ water' syndrome...I think artists will agree, we just don’t know what to do when we are audience members. It’s difficult to suspend your disbelief as an audience member because you have too much experience from the stage and you instinctively take on the same reflex reactions as if you were up there, except now you are helpless because you are not in the mix.

The problem extends to the church where pastors and worship leaders have the same difficulties. There is nothing more frustrating than to see the pastor on the front row, fiddling with his sermon notes during a tender moment in worship; or a worship leader checking email on his smart-phone. That might be a reminder for us to be aware of how we present ourselves on and off stage. Some of us "fish" would do better to just swim away!