Quotes About Music

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor has opened my eyes in many ways.

I can't get booked on the Fourth of July, or it'll be, 'Do you want to open for the opener for Toby Keith?' Hell, no.

I was once fired as opening act for Seals and Crofts because I got loaded and introduced them as Arts and Crafts.

Growing up I played in garage bands and cover bands with my older brother, and he got us a gig opening up for some hippie jam band. I was 15. I felt like such an adult!

I think, for a love story, the most important element is the music, since you don't have action sequences or item numbers. It really draws in the audience and adds to at least 70 percent of the opening of the movie.

Our audience seems to be able to handle whatever kind of weird opening acts we turn them on to. I mean, sometimes it happens to be something like a band like Nirvana or Mudhoney, and other times, its just weird noise crews that we dig up.

My first big gig was an opening show for Frank Zappa, and I think that was difficult.

I never, ever thought I would get to say I was opening a show for the Bay City Rollers.

My first jam was at Hotel Diplomat opening for Hollywood.

We're playing the Superbowl this year, we're opening up before the coins drop.

When you're 14, 15, and you get together and start making a noise, it is the world opening up. You have that indestructible feeling when you're young. But your ambitions when you are 13 are different when you're 25. By that time, your ambition isn't to be a star anymore; it's to make a living doing music.

Opening acts are hard, really hard. There's more politics involved than music, sometimes.

I've been very happy to see some of the success that I've had along the way in opening the eyes of people, especially people who listen to music.

Great stories start with great opening lines. 'I'm a lineman for the county' - what a great way to start a song.

I really love headlining. Opening up is fun - getting to play for all these people who might not know you - but it's so much easier sometimes playing for people who know all your songs: you get that instant feedback.

My character in 'Mr. Holland's Opus' was kind of coming of age, learning about a world that was opening up to her.

The first album was more born from busking - they were the 'me-and-my-guitar' songs. Going out on the road and opening for big acts changes you. You look out at those audiences and start to think, 'OK, I need to write some music that's a little bit bigger.'

It's a matter of people closing their eyes and opening their ears. If people are able to do that, then music is ageless.

What's an opening night without forgetting some lyrics?

Music can be a way for me to think back a lot of the time, almost like an opening into all the nostalgia I never express.

It's complicated for my music to be accepted, even in Lebanon and the Arabic world - I sing in Arabic, but there's no lute, no classical instruments. Maybe with the Internet opening things up, things will change.

We've played every dirty rock-and-roll club in America, and we've been opening acts for everyone.

We played New Year's Eve in Los Angeles, maybe 1978, opening for Kansas or somebody. Driving to the hotel after the gig, we came on KLOS. It was like, 'All right! We're in L.A., we just played a big gig, and we're on the radio!' That was the start of something big.

I definitely see the genre opening up a lot more. I don't know if black people don't want to get into country music or what, but I feel like we're breaking down barriers.