“It’s never for the glory, it’s for the satisfaction of blowing up a gig. a lot of people are satisfied with a video. Those who aren’t satisfied with a video will buy the album, and then there’s a few who get the album who will go to the show. That’s where it’s human beings, and that’s what we live for. That’s where it gets sick. If it’s all on video or all on record everything is proper and everyone is minding their manners. We like to get in there and cause a commotion. That’s music; that’s the way it’s meant to be.” Beck.
I love this quote. It actually came off of a show called Sessions at West 54th that used to air back in the 90s. It featured really great bands and musicians playing absolutely live and in the round. It was an intimate venue that allowed great artists to put killer abilities on display.
At some level I will always be a live musician. I used to be intimidated by the studio, but got over that fear (thanks to a lot of work with a metronome, amongst other things), but it still always comes down to the live event, the exchange of sweat and blood and volume and energy that happens when you’re just pouring it out on a stage, and people are soaking it up and nodding their heads up and down and moving with energy. It’s always great to just let the moment take you, to throw aside perfection in favor of the power of a moment.
That’s still where it’s at.
this is eric case 
So talk more about how being a live musician, at your core, intersects with being a live musician in a Christian worship setting, where the “exchange of sweat and blood and volume and energy” also has a component of corporate spiritual, Holy Spirit stuff. It’s different. And the same. But different.
Talk about that some.
Well, “Beth” (IF, in fact that is your real name … 😉 ) Yes, exactly: it’s different, and the same. I have two thoughts…
1.
I definitely push towards that exchange in a church, BUT (and it’s a big “but”) I know that I have to limit the “sweat and blood” (and most of the volume) because well it’s a CHURCH/COMMUNITY and not a gig, and also because (relatedly) you have to deal with people of multiple demographics. This “self-limitation” is the same stuff that Paul talks about in his letters: sure if it was up to me I’d put a Marshall half-stack on stage and play really loud soulful music, but I CHOOSE to limit myself for the sake of others and therefore for the sake of the Gospel and the church.
2.
On another spiritual level, Christian worship can be sweaty and energetic (and even “hip-shaking) PRIMARILY because of the incarnation. Ultimately, Jesus’ life says God is okay with our bodies, with our physicality and in fact, to be physical is to be spiritual. In this sense, WORSHIP should be incarnational.