It was Saturday Night and I was in panic mode as I looked at my clipboard and desperately made changes in my notes….

I was part of a local concert at a beautiful restored old theatre in State College, PA. It was a benefit concert and the theme was British Invasion music. I was drafted to do an announcement about an upcoming series of events related to Woody Guthrie. And then I got drafted to play harmonica on a couple of songs. All this was last minute stuff, and I had very little time to prepare.

I was a nervous wreck as I went through my notes on my announcement I was to make. I was also  doing a crash course on the two songs I would be playing on, grabbing for riffs on my harmonica as I listened to the songs on my ipod. I was getting closer to the moment of truth, and it was too late to back out.

One of my friends had just finished the first set of the night and walked into the lounge where I was.

Here is a guy who has been playing music for decades in all sorts of venues. His family are all musicians, and he basically has grown up on stage. I asked him if he still gets stage fright. His answer – “yeah, always… every time before I do a show”.

I have asked this question a number of times over the years to big name and small name performers and the answer is always the same. Stage fright never goes away. The fear of blowing it in front of an audience makes show business dangerous and exciting. It makes you feel alive.

And you don’t have to be in big time show business to get a shot of this energy in your life. It comes from the anticipation and getting ready for a show, and the final stages of going through fear, panic, stage fright into the release of the show itself. The near death experience of the last moments before you go out and do your thing.

This makes me think of Bill Spanogle’s Barber Shop in my home town. My harmonica shop used to be right next door to Bill’s barber shop. He always asked me to “come on over and play some music for the customers when you have a chance”. Every once in a while I would. The weird thing about doing this was that it put me in as much or more of a panic as the shows I have done in front of thousands of people. I had to push through that shyness, and fear of looking like a jerk every single time I went over there and played a few tunes.

Nobody but me knew what i was going through when I walked in the barber shop with my harmonicas. I looked casual, I would banter with the folks, “hi how ya doin, what do you want to hear, how about an Irish tune…” but until I got going, I was basically a mess on the inside. And yet I always enjoyed doing it, because being a mess on the inside was just one part of the experience. It’s emotional Russian Roulette. Tension and Release. Fear and courage.

You can have this natural drug of show business in your life even if you think you are terminally shy. I think of myself as extremely shy, and for me, being shy seems to intensify the pleasure of moving through the fear into the release of playing the song, doing the show.

Dealing with stage fright is like building a muscle, you take small risks and gradually take on bigger risks. You notice that you don’t die when you do this, you feel more alive.

Doing an open mic, asking someone on a date, telling someone what you really feel inside. Preparation, anticipation, fear and release. It is a great game to be in, and you can get in any time you want to.

The other great thing about feeling like an idiot, falling flat on your face and surviving, being terrified and doing the thing anyhow, signing up for a show and doing it no matter what, is that it makes for great stories to tell your friends, children, the person sitting next to you.

You can have the exact same feelings as a rock star on some level if you dare to: terror, anticipation, the pleasure and tedium of preparation, tension and release. It will make you a better harmonica player and a more alive human being.

On with the show, this is it!