Years ago I was at a Christmas show on the riverboat General Jackson, sitting on the front row but at the end where the entertainers were coming on and off stage. For the brief second to two as each performer was coming on or off, you could see they were exhausted, and probably physically sore, and generally quite tired of repeating the same show five times a day for thirty days in a row--but the moment they hit center stage and the lights were on, they were smiling and making it appear that by golly, they were having the time of their life entertaining us. Some might say their smiles were contrived and forced but the entertainers were pretty good at acting happy. There's no doubt that their professionalism enabled them to smile and help the audience enjoy the show too. When they were taking their final bows, sure they still were smiling automatically, but yet it appeared they were content to have put on a good show, so their smiles weren't totally fake.
For us musicians, maybe we don't have to go to quite that level of contrived smiling, but it sure helps get the audience more involved if it looks like we're enjoying ourselves--even if we've just spent all day loading up the truck with the PA, then driving two hours, then setting up the PA and our gear, and hassling with the bar manager, and knowing at the end of the gig we've got to load out and drive two hours back home. And it's mutual--if the audience gets involved, it makes the gig more fun for us to play for them. Sometimes it does take a little bit of acting, sometimes we have to exaggerate our movements a little bit so the audience will pick up on them. If I know the songs inside and out, though, I can set my mind and hands on "cruise control" sometimes, allowing me to smile, interact with the other band members, check out the hot women on the dance floor, see what the score is on the football game that's playing on the TV behind the bar, then come back to reality and wonder hey are are we on the second verse or the third, and where's that confounded bridge, or did we just play the bridge... The important thing is to know the songs so that I'm not having to spend every second concentrating on what I'm playing. Gets back to the adage, "Amateurs practice until they play it right. Professionals practice until they never play it wrong."
