Take the stage with force

by | Jun 6, 2023 | Blog

Have you ever been present for a live performance that dazzled you from the moment it started?

One where you’re struck by the thought, “Oh yes, this is the difference between good and great.”

For me, it was Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings lighting things up in the small (~300 ppl) and low-ceilinged Babylon Nightclub in Ottawa, ON, in 2005.

I’d never seen such a tight, well-coordinated band before. Nor a performer with such raw charisma and energy.

It was an electrifying evening.

And it’s on my mind because Robin Sloan, whose excellent newsletter I follow, commented on one of Nick Cave’s excellent Red Hand Files, which I also follow:

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“Here is Nick Cave describing a salient scene:

I remember waiting in the darkened venue for [the band] to come on, bummed out about England, listening to some ambient music wafting out of the speakers, when suddenly and without warning The Pop Group strode onto stage and ploughed into the opening song with such indomitable force and such sudden visceral rage that I could barely breathe. It was the most exciting and ferocious concert of my young life — every­thing changed at that moment and we, as a fledgling band, knew then what we needed to do.

“What an image! Striding, ploughing! What would it mean for a novel to take the stage with that kind of energy?”

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Back to me (sorry for the newsletter inception).

Reading this I thought, non-hyperbolically, this is how we ought to feel about our businesses too. For your ideal customers, why shouldn’t your offer be dazzling?

So I’ll ask, moving from bands to books to business, what would it mean for your business or your next campaign to take the stage with that kind of energy?

Dap-dipping,
James

P.S. It’s not the concert I was at, but it was this tour, a few months later. Same vibe.