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Steve, I'd like to hear more about how you interact with the audience. I think audience interaction is important, but I'm a fairly introverted guy.



I can tell you from first hand knowledge that Steve and introverted have never collided in the same sentence. He also plays to a steady following so the banter is fairly natural, and people always leave his shows laughing. I did the crowd patter in a Motown band I was in, and basically I was just being a smart ass, fortunately something that comes naturally to me. Make some jokes about the ugly shirt someone is wearing, comment as someone goes into the bathroom that they are running out on you, tell the story about why this next song was written.... I used to do a bit after the first song were I would find something to get a laugh out of. Two examples. Once playing in a room we visited often, one particular girl always sat in the same seat. Every time we played, she was in "that" seat. One night she got there late and her seat was taken so she sat somewhere else. When we finished that first song, I stopped and looked over the room like I was thinking or drinking in the room. Then I said "Something is just wrong here tonight...... Oh yeah. I see it now." Then I took the wireless mic and walked out and went to that girl and said "This girl is in the wrong seat. That's what it is. And I escorted her to "her" seat and told the guy "I'm sorry sir but you are going to have to move. This girl sits here." And the guy laughed like crazy and found another seat. (I ended up dating that girl for almost a year...) The other example is that some girls came in and one of them was like 5'10" and all legs and she had this TINY skirt on. She sat at the bar across from the stage and crossed those long legs. And a few songs in I stopped the show and went to her with a towel I had on stage and draped it across her knees, saying "You look great and all I but I am trying to work here and I can't play and stare at these long legs at the same time." She loved it, the room laughed.... she followed us gig to gig after that night.

Another thing we did was go in early and tape a band business card to the underside of a chair and at some point we'd tell them to check and whoever had the card got a free beer on the band.

One night, just for no reason, I said "Okay, and tonight's winning number is "Five..... Seven.... Nine. Who has 579?" (which of course meant nothing because there was no contest or anything, but it made for a lot of buzz.)

Mainly, just have fun with them like you'd circulate at a party. Sense of humor is HUGE, and sadly missing from this "do it now, microwaved corporate go-go-go country we live in." 7 people doing the work of 10, people working 8 hours at work and then logging in from home to work 4 more..... Life goes past too quickly to work yourself to death and miss out on having fun.