Rolling Stones, Beatles, we gave them all the break they were looking for. All they needed was a good opening act, and we went out there and performed as well as we could... over 15,000 kids chanting.
I think every good song tells a story, as ambiguous and vague as it may be. And if you know what a song is talking about, it can only help your performance.
If you give a good performance, something that gets some feeling across to people, that's such a rare gift. It's underestimated at this point in history, when the music biz is inevitably turning into a kind of politics.
I go to the theatre expecting to have a good time. I want each play and performance to take me somewhere. Naturally, this doesn't always happen.
I firmly believe that knowing too much too soon can color your performance in a not good way. I just don't want to know until I need to know. And then you just roll with it.
No matter what size I am I love performing no matter how big or little I am! I feel good.
Even now, I have traces of the good little girl. When I am not performing, for instance, I am really very quiet and ordinary.
It seems like a contradiction, but the shy person who is a performer actually does make sense, because in a way, when you're young and shy, making people laugh is a good way to make friends. It's an instant connection.
It wasn't just about flashing lights and pinball machines blowing up and things like that. It was about using encores, bringing back the good songs and using techniques that I knew about from rock performance.
When I was on the X-Factor, I found that I grew a lot as a performer. I knew I could sing but I didn't believe in myself enough... I needed to hear that I was good.
At the end, it's your movie and your performance that stands out. So if I am a good actor, and if am being part of good entertaining engaging films, audiences will like me.
My singing wasn't horrible, but my dancing really made it look silly. It's not like I'm a horrible singer that can't sing. But I don't have the consistency or the presentation skills that a good performer has.
I think there's something unfortunate about the attention that performers get in our media, but the weight of government propaganda is so heavy that anyone with a different point of view who has access to the media has a responsibility to use it.
To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.
My last public performance for money was in 1967. For free, it was 1972, with the exception of two little one-shot, one-song things. But that's just for friends, out of friendship for the people involved, and also because it was fun.
I still get thrilled by the energy that is a live performance, the fear and the panic and the electricity that happens on the night. I think jolting myself every once in a while with that fear is a good thing for me.
A big fear of working with an actor that's never been a lead in a film before is that you're going to have to work really hard to pull a performance out of her.
I've wanted to perform my entire life. I found a paper I wrote in kindergarten class about what I wanted to be when I grew up - and I wrote 'a famous singer!'
The United States have fulfilled in good faith all their treaty stipulations with the Indian tribes, and have in every other instance insisted upon a like performance of their obligations.
I am having so much fun performing, I feel almost guilty. I think, my God, I hope no one comes and busts me for this.
Coping with the demands of everyday life would be exceedingly trying if one could arrive at solutions to problems only by actually performing possible options and suffering the consequences.
