My first concert ever was Sting at The Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland in 1990. It was his “Nothing Like the Sun” tour—not exactly the coolest first concert ever, but I was a huge fan of The Police growing up. When those house lights kicked off, a cheer rose up and went through the masses. The excitement was palpable. The crowd of people on the floor all pushed toward the stage, and so did I. The band featured saxophonist Branford Marsalis and pianist Kenny Kirkland among others, and they all killed. The lights, the booming sound, the roar of the crowd when he played his hits—it was overwhelming.

After Sting and Co. put the crowd through our paces for a few hours (though a few hours less than he puts his wife through), Sting came out solo for a second encore. He led the thousands in attendance through a “call and response” acoustic version of The Police classic “Message in a Bottle,” and it was nothing short of magic. What worked? Was it just the familiarity with the songs? The bells and whistles? Just the fact that there were thousands in attendance? I doubt it. REM bored me to death in the same arena on their “Green” tour, and I knew many of their songs. I only remember Michael Stipe marching in place all night. Yawn.

Sometimes it seems good music isn’t enough to make for a truly memorable live experience. So what makes a good live performance? What keeps people coming back and bringing friends?

“(The) best show I ever saw was in 1979,” says Jodie Curtis, one of the many singer-songwriters to surface recently for the RPM challenge. “I was young and a little wild, it was Bruce Springsteen (at The) Boston Garden.” Bruce, Curtis says, had more physical energy than anyone she had seen before and it left an impression. She watched from the 10th row as the audience was swallowed up and carried along by Springsteen’s passion. They do call him The Boss, after all.

“I guess the key components were that you could tell he loved what he was doing (and that) he came to his music with an honesty that anyone could relate to,” she says. “He came right down on the floor and into the aisles and made us be a part of the experience. That, it seems to me, is the key—to share the experience with the audience.”

“When I have seen bands that don’t have a live presence, it’s because they are merely playing, not performing,” says Gary Fox, who played guitar for years in bands like Zombie Jamboree and Big Dog Neighborhood in beery basements and bars. Now Fox fronts The Raindogs. He likens the band/audience relationship to the chemistry that may or may not happen between people dating.

Fly Spinach Fly, he says, are one of his favorite examples of what does work. They were a local heavy guitar band from the 1990s that featured a horn section, a hype man and more energy than a bunch of school kids on sugar.

“I remember one specific show where a bunch of textbook yuppies came in, wearing the prerequisite blue button-down shirts, khakis and loafers. One even had a sweater tied around his neck,” says Fox. “Within 15 minutes, they were in the middle of the crowd dancing, having fun and trading jokes with the typical Fly crowd. What happened? Chemistry, connection, something. They simply got it, and wanted to be a part of it.”

I remember hearing a story about Percy Hill’s first gig. The jam band was opening up for local phenomenon Groovechild to a packed house at The MUB at the University of New Hampshire in the early 1990s. The story goes that Percy Hill was so overwhelmingly well received that the band’s manager had to spontaneously start a mailing list on a pizza box. They got 500 names!

Was that just chemistry? Were the stars aligned in Percy’s favor that night, or was there something more? I was at The Stone Church when Moon Boot Lover played there for the first time, roughly during the same era. They opened up for a local band called Born Naked. Frontman Peter Prince’s explosive personality and Al Green-meets-ZZ Top attack left more than one head dizzy that night. They were on a mission, and they blew the roof off the joint—but there was no pizza box fanfare.

Percy Hill was, and is, a killer live act, and soon after that first Seacoast show, Moon Boot was selling out a weekend of shows at The Church. Both became live music staples in the region and beyond. So why would one cause such a stir, and the other, not so much—at least out of the chute—when both are such great acts?

One difference was that Percy played to a packed show and Moon Boot to a decent, but not sold-out crowd.

Guitarist Jon McCormack thinks that might have something to do with it. He says it’s always easier to feed off the energy of a crowd of people than a table of three sitting in the back. Moon Boot made him a believer, too.

“It’s easy and obvious to say that ‘connecting’ with the crowd makes a great show but this connection is so much harder to define and to conjure than anyone imagines,” says McCormack, who played with Fly Spinach Fly and looks remarkably like the fellow who plays guitar for Camarojuana and Museum of Science.

“I remember seeing Moon Boot Lover at the Muddy River Smokehouse maybe seven or eight years ago and being blown away by Peter Prince and the way he connected with the crowd,” he says. “Someone else could have exuded the same energy and skill and enthusiasm, but his whole presence was so genuine that it was infectious. You could tell that none of it was rehearsed or contrived, he didn’t practice it in the mirror the day before, it was just flowing naturally and it made you want to jump up and dance.”

“An audience needs to feel like they are part of the event,” says John LaClair of local rockers PoppaCap. “Be it dancing, moshing, singing along or even just clapping to the beat. They want to participate and not just feel like they are at home listening to the radio.”

That whole “getting the audience to connect with you” thing seems to be the stuff that separates the greats from the not-so-greats, but McCormack is right about it being harder to do than it looks. Fox agrees.

“This is akin to trying to get someone to kiss you when you are first introduced,” he says, “Some will do it, most won’t.”

Granted, if it were easy to make a checklist of qualities guaranteed to make for a great live show, there would be more great live shows. Please do send the list along if you come up with one, eh? I sure could use it.

After the Sting show all those years ago, we filed like cattle up to the merchandise table to score some overpriced tour T-shirts as a memento. My brother James and cousin David and I stopped at The Burger King on the highway on the way back home and excitedly scurried in for a quick bite of bad food, going over the night’s events. There were others there with new tour shirts pulled over their jackets and shirts, and plenty of remarks like, “Great show, huh?” passed back and forth between strangers. I felt like I knew those people. We had something in common. And it did feel like Sting wanted to be there, to put on as good a show for us as he could. James swore that Sting gave him a wave. Dave and I were jealous.

Jon Nolan now wishes Sting would drive his Jaguar over a cliff, but he still loves The Police. Continue the discussion about what makes a great live show on the RPM Web site, www.rpmchallenge.com