That was a line from one of my favourite movies of all time (any guesses!?). I just got over with my exams, so woohoo! and yes, since they are gone, my mind is gonna shift to other stupid things on earth. This... is not one of them...

I was thinking about the rules of performing rock songs. Not rules, exactly, but the ways you can get the audience involved, and leave an impact. I have not given many performances. But the ones I have, I got some really good feedback from the people. The most famous one of them being Stairway to heaven, which is now my song. I learnt a lot from that one performance, and though it was completely spontaneous ... there were a lot of things about it which i wish i could change. However, for anyone who is interested, here are my tips on what to do when on stage! :)

1. Feel your music! If you don't feel it, neither will your audience. Everything from jumps, to grows, to laughter to hand gestures and facial expressions. Everything counts to your stage prescence. Ofcourse, I'm not telling you to overdo it (like Cruise on Oprah), and overshadow your bandmates. You won't have a band to perform with if you do that ;)

2. Relate to the song. This is almost the same as the previous point. If you can relate to the song, you'll automatically be the personification of the lyrics, and people will feel it with you, which is exactly what you want. Doesn't it give you a high to see the people shouting with you, and banging their hands with you?

3. Pick good, fast songs, and do whatever comes naturally no matter how wacky it is. No-one wants to hear a 'I want it that way' on stage pal, so stay away from it if you can help it. If you're running out of pumping songs that you guys wrote, do covers of classics. they never fail, because those are songs which people have been hearing for so long, it brings back good memories and the old nostalgic feeling back. remember how you feel when you here the intro riff of sweet child o' mine?

4. Last but not the least, be natural. don't care about what your other bandmates are doing or not ... you should do your own thing. you wanna jump, go ahead and jump. you wanna slam the guitar, go ahead and do it. the more spontaneous it is, the more natural it is ... a fake is very easily spotted, and people lose interest the moment they do. go all out ... treat it like your last performance. the moment you do, you'll give your best, which is what you should do.

look at live shows of high energy bands like guns and roses, aerosmith, acdc and the likes, and you'll see what i mean. you'll see each of those being played out perfectly in every performance. hope i've helped all performers out there! all in the name of rock!

for those about to rock, i salute you!