We just returned from a gig in Cleveland so the whole idea of playing live is on my mind.

I’ll admit to being more of a songwriter/recordist than a live performer. I sing wearing headphones when I record, most often to a track developed earlier, knowing exactly how the track is going to sound as add my vocal.

There is good and bad in this, as in all things. You know the foundation over which you play is not going to shift, so you’re free to explore your performance without the danger of stepping on another player’s best moments. But unless the band is playing in the room as you perform, the shooting star thrill and danger of an organic, changing performance is, by definition, absent. The process of recording offers focus but forfeits the opportunity for a lightning strike of communal improvisation.

Sounds like a lot to lose, right? Well, let’s chase the metaphor: how many of us have ever been struck by lightning? Very few, of course. But who has not marveled at the beauty of nature’s fury simply by seeing it unfold? The power of a storm seen from a distance is less dramatic than a hissing bolt striking a few inches from your flip-flops. But a safe-distance storm is more frequently experienced and more universally enjoyed.

I choose to experience a storm without standing in the middle of a meadow. For me, the frequent small inspirations of recording are preferable to the sparser, more searing thrill of live performance. Now that we’ve beaten the lightning image to death, let’s move on.

Why do I feel the thrill of live performance infrequently? Well, for a start, I play live infrequently! But the other factor for the performer is what you hear and how you hear it. Even the seemingly simple combination of a single voice and guitar, filtered through amplification, room shape and size, audience participation and the imbalance of just two aural elements can render me clueless as to whether I’m communicating from that stage or not.

And the larger the ensemble, the greater the number of elements that can obscure what you hear. After the show this past weekend, my co-Comet asked about a detail of his performance. I pride myself on my ability to listen but I didn’t hear the element he was describing. Why? During the song in question, I couldn’t hear my own instrument and I was trying to adapt to that while simultaneously thinking about the vocal parts our guest performer and I were about to add to the chorus.

When so many factors – instrumentation, audience, room, balance, lyric – are flying by simultaneously onstage, you, or at least I, can’t take it all in. It’s pin-the-tail-on-the-love song. You’re flying through cloud-cover, you’re driving in the rain. This is an aspect of the thrill, of course. But another aspect is that lightning can flash and you can miss it. And so, I suggest, can your audience.

So, forgive me if I think that my satisfaction lies more in the glowing, repeatable moments you find in a great recording than in the brilliant, infrequent flashes on a stage. I won’t stop performing when asked but I will stop asking so much of the performance itself. I can drive in the rain but I prefer a clear horizon.

David Partridge