Thank you. And as usual, mr fuck has good insight. And they definitely don’t care if you miss things here and there. What they do care about though imo is are you delivering the song with confidence. If you are fumbling around and letting the song sing you instead of you singing the song they will pick up on it. And it will not be good for the vibe. I was in exactly your same boat. For decades. Always played. Always wanted to play live. Never had the confidence. Never had the right situation blah blah blah whatever. And it always bugged me. Gnawed at me. Never really went away. I would see people playing all the time, some who were very good and would blow me away. But many who honestly were just meh, but getting paid and playing, and I’d think man I think I could at least be that good. So about 5-6 years ago I set a goal to try to get paid to make music. Long tall mountain to climb. But who gives a fuck. The climb is fun. If I make it I make it. If not, we’ll at least I tried. But every day I tried to take a few steps up the hill. My rationale with trying to get paid is that no one will tell you the truth if you suck. But if they pay you, and even better invite you back, well then there’s your answer. It was a commitment. And has taken a ton of work. And priorities. It was a catalyst in my divorce. (Not to digress, but not saying it was the cause, but just shed light on an already problematic situation. What good is a supposed life partner who can’t support someone chasing a lifelong dream? Happy to have this longer discussion elsewhere if anyone is interested). I couldn’t sing for shit. Found a really good and cool voice coach. Spent a bunch of time with her. She was as much of a performance coach as just a voice coach. But she was amazing at both. Berklee degree, legit bonafides. She’s the one that really helped me understand the confidence concept. Her line was, if you haven’t practiced a song so much you are completely sick of it, you aren’t ready to perform it. It will sing you and people will pick up on it. So practice. A lot. The first day I went in for a lesson, I had stalled all I could stall and finally had to sing. She stopped me about half way through and said yea, no, that really just isn’t working at all. Holy fuck that was horrifying. But she was great about it and we kept going. She was like my goal is to get you playing out if that what you want to do. I said fine but you have to tell me the truth, because no one else will. If you won’t tell me it sucks if it sucks, then I can never believe you when you say it’s good and I’m ready. That was our deal. I still wasn’t sure I believed her. I did this for about six months. Then ventured to some open mics. Didn’t tell anyone where or when. Also holy fucking shit. That’s eye opening. But I did it. And the dudes there were great. Totally welcoming and understanding. Did a dozen or so of those but they get old pretty quick. Lots of waiting around for 2/3/4 tunes. No warm up, no time to get into a groove, pa always sucks etc etc. But they serve their purpose - they will get you over your stage fright. If you bust through that wall just once, when you are done it will feel pretty damn cool after. The lady singer was part of our larger band. After an offhand comment one time we ended up doing so couple tunes at a couple open mics. After trying for a year to get the other guitarist to do it with me. (He’s really really good, but acoustic shit is for fags, Def Leppard man!). Anyway, we just sort of liked doing it and it grew from there. It definitely helps to play with someone who can sing like that. May will be our 3 year anniversary of getting paid to make music. We’ve probably done 200 paid gigs. Have about 250 songs we can do. We’ve done clubs, bars, private parties, corporate gigs, charity events, etc etc. We get invited back all the time from places we play. We’re booked as much as we want to play. Probably made close to $50k so far. But beyond the money it’s far and away the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Probably ever. The point of this long story is that I am nothing special. I’m a hack guitar player and an even worse hack singer. But I found someone to help me, and just worked at it. I firmly believe that anyone who can play even a little can do at least what I’ve done if they want to. And probably be much better. The mountain is climbable for anyone who wants to get up there. /end of sermon