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I've attended many concerts where I felt let down and I was wishing it would be something else. Not that it's their duty to please me, but at the same time, I think a lot about what it's like through the eyes of the consumer, the fan. I want not to pander to the audience, but to be aware of them.

People buy a ticket to see your show, so from the moment I get onstage, I can have no insecurities, because they're already there. You have to get people to listen. If they listen, everything's cool.

I didn't know if I had the music for it or if I could pull off the larger concert experience. Then I realized if I can just continue to be myself, I'll be all right.

I don't go to a lot of shows. If you go to too many shows, then it doesn't become a special thing. Whenever I've been to a concert, it has been such a cool experience.

So many nights I'm up there on stage and I wish everybody out in the audience could see what I see and feel what I feel.

As soon as it was understood that we could handle things in our own way, it was the thrill of my life to walk out on that stage with people just hemming the band in.

Most of my career has been about standing on a stage performing music to an audience, and once the show is over, they go home and I go on to the next show.

Although I do feel that with a show like ours we ourselves are getting a lot more young listeners at concerts.

Some artists I know, they would rather not see the audience or envision them. But for me, I'd rather see them. I feel like part of the reason I perform is to feel that connection. It's the reason I love it so much.

My only general rule was to steer away from things I played with the band over the past couple of tours. I was interested in re-shaping the Rising material for live shows, so people could hear the bare bones of that.