Just Skimmed Through STORMS

[David]

Originally Posted by michelej1

Anyway, after FM that's one of the things I found strange about the Dixie Chicks live. They rarely look at each other on stage. Christine, Stevie and Lindsey frequently look at each other.

I think that, depending on the musician's personality, he or she will look at the other people in the band, or up at the lights or down at the floor. It depends on the personal comfort zone. Most musicians have to look, at least occasionally, down at what they're playing to get a periodic bearing, especially when they're doing some soloing. I think it all has less to do with your emotions than with onstage tics, so I tend not to see wild, windswept passions on the players' faces as much as other people do. I look at everything sort of mechanistically, wheels & gears grinding & shifting in order to get the song played & sung decently. If I have to perform, my overriding "emotion" is only slight anxiety: "What if my stand crashes right now? What do we really sound like at front-of-hall? It's hot up here" &c. Maybe that's personal experience talking.

I think Christine, especially in the olden days when Fleetwood Mac was not on top, tended to have that slight anxiety look on her, & even in later years when she was a superstar, she never looked totally at home in front of an audience. I notice she used to fidget quite a bit, reaching for knobs & things when she didn't really have to -- kind of the way if your boss walks in your office, you reach for some stacks of papers or shuffle something around.