Creating passionate fans

Musicians know a lot about making and keeping fans. Last night the four Headrush bloggers (me, Eric, Beth, and Bert) went to a sold-out Finn brothers concert at the Boulder Theater, and two amazing things happened:

First, the show was nearly cancelled because Neil had a severe case of the flu. He was in the hospital in San Francisco the day before. But they pumped him full of drugs (and apparently a single-malt scotch) and he somehow managed to get there, arriving minutes before the show was to start. I hadn't even been a Finn fan prior to the show (Eric and Beth talked us into it), but I have a really soft spot for those who leave a hospital rather than disappoint the customers/fans. : )

But something more important went on throughout the night...

They played the songs they've been playing for twenty years as soulfully and passionately as though it was their first time. As though we were their first and most important audience.

Think about how damn many times over the years they must have played Neil's biggest hit, "Don't Dream It's Over". Thousands. But it was achingly beautiful last night despite what might have been, like, the 3,042nd time they've played it live.

But I'll come back to that in a minute.

It got me thinking about how good some artists and bands are at loving their fans. Or at least getting their fans to love them. I've seen Coldplay three times in the last couple years, in three different venues. (I love live shows). Each time was amazing, and Chris Martin was always inspiring. But the last time was incredible--it was at one of the most magical concert spots in the country, Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Red Rocks is outside, and the concerts are held during the summer when it should be warm and gorgeous. But not this night. It was pouring rain, from start-to-end, and near freezing.

But the fans stuck it out, shivering and huddling under plastic tarps, blankets, and trash bags and everyone was drenched. Chris Martin kept mentioning how grateful he was that everyone was there putting up with this. He even apologized for the weather!? But at the end, when he should have been as anxious as anyone to just get the hell out of there, he said he was going to do something they never do... an extra encore. He told us that he felt so bad about what we'd been going through that he wanted to do something special for us, so they came back out again after their last encore, and then did something they'd never planned on... and started playing.

We felt like we were the most special audience they'd ever played for. Here we all were, completely miserable, and still thinking we were lucky to have been part of that show, and that we experienced something nobody else would.

Skyler is a fan of the UK indie band Travis. They don't tour the US much, so it was a big deal when they came to town when she was 14. We got there hours before the doors opened to get a good spot, and before lining up we went around the back of the building, and there stood the band's frontman/lead singer Fran Healy. What happened next was astonishing (keep in mind that while Travis is mostly unknown in the US, they're HUGE in the UK. This is not your local bar band):

Fran: "Hello there, I'm Fran." (as if she might not actually know that!)
Skyler: "Hi, I'm Skyler".
Fran: "Hey, you're from the message board!"
Skyler: (stunned) "Yes! Wow!"
Fran: "It's great to meet you in person Skyler. Is this where you live?"

(On it goes, with two of the other three band members coming out of the bus to say hi.)

Think about that... it means the band actually reads their message board posts, enough to have recognized Skyler as a frequent poster.

So you probably all have a ton of stories about a band or artist that really made you feel like they cared deeply about their fans, but I wanted to come back to that part about singing a song as though it were the first time. I've thought about how many times I've taken classes from teachers who you knew had been teaching this class forever. You knew because it showed. They were barely present. You might know it as the "phoning it in" effect. You've almost certainly been there.

So that's the question... how do you keep your work feeling inspired and passionate? Fresh? If you're a manager, what can you do to help your employees stop sliding into the phoning-it-in stage? Obviously putting them under constant stress isn't the right idea, but what about making sure they have chances to have variety in their work, or at least occasional chances to work on a different kind of project or role, at least temporarily, to step back and look at their work differently.

How can you keep your own work from suffering from phone-it-in? What can you do so that when you sing to that audience after twenty years, you leave them feeling as though this was your debut night, and they were the most special audience you'll ever play to?