Quotes About Experience

Glasgow Barrowlands is the greatest concert venue in the world.

No matter where I go, I never write the setlist until I'm at the venue.

Vegas is definitely a new challenge, but I wanted to be able to put on a different type of show. You get to do so much more when you don't have to put your stage in trucks after the show every night - we got to build a venue specifically for my show. It's going to be more like a party than a typical concert.

When I had my first gig, I was 18 in January in 2007. My first gig that I got paid, I was playing for 10 people in a 250 people capacity venue. The promoter wanted to book me because he liked my music. I played a couple of songs that made people dance. To me, that rush has always stayed the same.

When you say 'failure,' that seems really dramatic, but a lot of failure is just really depressing and mundane. I remember the first time I ever played a concert in Italy. I played a venue that held 900 people, and I think five people showed up. It wasn't a big, 'John Carter of Mars' type failure. It wasn't dramatic; it was just depressing.

Let me tell you, 10,000 is an intimate room. Believe me. I want to be able to connect to everybody in the room, and you can't with a venue any bigger than that.

I appreciate the intimacy of a 300-to-500-person venue; it's the sweet spot for me.

The facts are, when we played here, we were treated better in Greensboro than any other tournament venue.

In 2002 I did a big tour of Europe, by train, by myself, on foot, all the time walking from train station to the venue, in a weird town, in a weird country. I'd brought an acoustic guitar with me but it got broken somehow in transit.

I remember playing one of our first matches in Old Trafford, the home of Manchester United, and I remember that feeling of just being in that iconic venue.

There are a lot more variables with festivals than just playing in a venue.

I did an open air gig in Regent's Park and that's an incredible venue because the sun sort of sets while you're on stage and you can see the audience so brightly.

You know, songs like 'Rock'n Me' were actually written to be played in large... for a hundred thousand people kind of gatherings. And a lot of what came out on 'Fly Like an Eagle' and 'Book of Dreams' was music that was put together to be played in big, big venues with big light shows.

I headline concert halls for 20,000 people, but I still play smaller venues.

I never played coffee shops; I just played a lot of coffee shop-sized venues. I took every venue I could get my hands on.

It's fun playing small venues.

I will definitely start in small venues, as I want to find my feet as a performer; the first shows that Westlife did was ten dates at Wembley, which was just crazy. We didn't have a clue what we were doing because it was so big.

I've played Madison Square Garden and Jones Beach several times, but I personally don't enjoy those larger venues. I much prefer theater or a performance space.

One of my favorite venues is the Bowery Ballroom in New York. I love the room; there's a tiny stage, but I really like the feel of it.

As much as only playing clubs can become tedious, performing in huge venues can also become off-putting. To go from one to the other feels great. And sometimes playing clubs can be even more stressful, because you really have to think about what you're going to tell the audience between songs.

You know, I play in small, intimate venues; I'm not an arena performer.

All I know is that as an audience member, I am less and less inclined to go to the theater. But that has to do with content and also because the venues seem to be actively trying to repel people.

You go into the venues, and there's a huge drop-off rate in the merch lines. People don't want to miss parts of the concert.

Most of the people I hang out with who sing love it, and they just want to do it until they die. I still look forward to the performances. And believe it or not, they're all kind of different. Even though you sing the same songs, and maybe you go to the same venues, it just feels completely different every time you go on stage.