Warren wrote
Keep in mind that some people have 0 stage presence despite being great and famous guitarists (John Petrucci?) whilst others go for completely over the top (Steve Vai?). I think it's good to work with what you've got, and be careful not to try too hard to emulate someone else.
John Petrucci has sufficient stage presence, he gets into it, headbangs, pulls the occasional silly face or two during a solo. Most people probably wouldn't be able to play most of that stuff even when standing dead still staring directly at their fretboards, to be honest though if he pranced around the stage like a fairy (Vai) it would probably be quite annoying. I think depending on the type of music you're playing there's a certain type of presence you should strive for, cause the performance is more about the band as a unit.
If you're in a metal band all the hip swaying and guitar dry humping of Vai would look very out of place, likewise you can't mosh and play funk ? One of the worst things to see is a band where certain members are far more animated then most, it just makes them look like attention whores and it's kinda unproffessional to have one or two members hogging all the spotlight. Just my opinion though, I don't like it when bands don't consider the band as a whole.
If you wanna see some amazing epic win faces go to Youtube and watch Dave Martone play Attack Of The Celery Crunchers at guitar centre (or whatever store it was), I'd love to be in the audience and when he looks directly at you with one of those maniac faces - pull the same one right back at him ? It's just awesome cause he gets so into it, and he's an amazing musician.
