I used to play in a band that had a little juice around Chicagoland in the late 90s/early 00s and we never played for more than 1,000 people. I don't remember ever being nervous before going on stage. Maybe in high school talent shows or something but when you write songs, practice the shit out of them, and end up playing them live you're just thinking about what you have to do.

That said, we re-wrote our set closer after we'd played it out probably 50+ times. I mean the song was finished and rock solid but we decided to draw it out a bit because it was kind of short. So we add this thing where me (guitar) and my bassist do a 1/4 time version of the chorus to start the song with the drums slowly building up. After the 4 bars, we put in this guitar lick I'd always thought the rhythm guitarist would play if we had one and just me and the vocalist do the first verse in half time.

The switch from the slow bass/drums/guitar intro to our singer coming in and me playing was a proper goosebumps moment when we nailed it. The first show we played it was a big party in a barn out in the country and there were probably 500+ people in the audience when we played. We go in to our closer (Which we lovingly called "The Closer") and our vocalist is suddenly doing this windy oooh ahhh thing over the instrumental. We'd never practiced that. I'd never heard it before.

But it sounded alright and I just kept my jam going. When we hit the post, his vocals were spot-on and he belted right in to the verse. I scanned the crowd and saw mouths open, postures kind of changed, and this girl just in front of me goes "Oh my fucking god!"

I had this emotional as hell moment. My leg started to tremble, and I felt a pang in my stomach. Bassist walks over and says "Nailed it!" and I almost folded right then.

I don't remember playing it. I remember what I saw, heard, and felt but I don't recall hitting pedals, executing intricate chord changes... It was just rote memory, i'm sure. I'd spent hundreds of hours practicing the parts of this song by that point and I could have probably played it, and sang harmonies in my sleep at that time.

It's probably the same for folks like Tracy Chapman here. I'm sure she's soaking it up and very aware of what's happening. But by this time, she has probably done Fast Car so many times it just comes out of her.