An original act futzes up the start of the last song in their set; should they restart the song or keep on soldiering?

For example, the last song of our set on sunday night had a terrible, muddled start. I was in control of the backing tracks / drummer's click, so it was up to me whether or not we continued. I let it fly, and we had fully recovered before the first chorus (0:20 or so).

When we were discussing it after the fact, it was most people's opinion that we should have started over, and have a laugh about it. My thoughts were that it was a bit more professional to just recover and just keep going.

What do other people think?

As a general rule, I favor stopping a sloppy start immediately - before it has a chance to completely fall apart and cause further disarray. The key in this case is to act very quickly and decisively, not letting it go a moment longer than absolutely necessary - then restarting it right away, without any long pauses...

I suppose there are those exceptions where the false start is so minor as to hardly be noticed, and the band seems to be recovering so quickly, that one could just let it go. But that doesn't seem to describe your experience of "...a terrible, muddled start". And in any event, 20 seconds is far too long to allow it to continue.

For the record, it is not unprofessional to stop a bad start. It is unprofessional to not stop it. I agree with your bandmates on this one...

MM

Cool, thanks.

I may have been exaggerating when I called it that; we thought it was such (probably due to bias), however the crowd (including my partner and some other friends of the band) didn't seem to think it was quite that bad.

In retrospect, I agree stopping probably would have been the best course of action; knowing when to do such things is going to be quite challenging. Onstage communication between one another is probably something we're going to have to work on, too.

Yeah, stopping immediately after a bad start gives you an odd "human" connection to the crowd. They know you're human and you can share a laugh about it, then bang it out and nail the song. That's the kind of stuff they talk about after a show. "Man, they messed up their last song. Then they stopped and said, 'I forgot the song.' After that they killed it. It was probably planned." Or something along those lines...they might say...after the show...I'm leaving now...good luck with life :-)

I believe an audience would much rather see a band stop, laugh about it and start again - than see you panic trying to recover.

We were showcasing one time for a pretty decent indie label. We train wrecked the beginning of a new song, stopped, said "Looks like that ain't happening," and moved onto the next song. The record company loved that we did that and wound up signing us. Had we tried to recover I believe it would have looked real bad. If we didn't recover it would have looked worse. It also would have had us cursing the drummer the rest of the set. It was his fault. It's always the drummers fault.

:D We will restart a song when it gets cattywhompus at the beginning.

This happened more often with our previous drummer....

It would be worse, I think, if either a) everybody in the band looked stricken or b) you muddled through and never got the song going correctly.

The nice thing about gigging, as opposed to recording, is that, when you screw up, it's immediately gone. Move on and have fun.

There was a famous incident years ago on Saturday Night Live (American TV show), on which Elvis Costello and The Attractions appeared. They apparently got off to a rocky start on a tune - and Elvis stopped it by facing the band and yelling "Stop!", right there on live television before 50 million viewers - before then launching into "Radio Radio"...

You can watch it for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOuknbvu21Q

MM

They apparently got off to a rocky start on a tune - and Elvis stopped it by facing the band and yelling "Stop!", right there on live television before 50 million viewers - before then launching into "Radio Radio"...


The story I remember about that was that Elvis was supposed to play "Less than Zero" -- at the preference of his label and SNL, but after starting "Less than Zero," Costello called an audible to have the band play the song he wanted to perform, "Radio Radio." Not a gaffe, but a little insurrection.

Because it threw off the live show's timing, SNL's producers were less than charmed by Costello's stunt.

There was a famous incident years ago on Saturday Night Live (American TV show), on which Elvis Costello and The Attractions appeared. They apparently got off to a rocky start on a tune - and Elvis stopped it by facing the band and yelling "Stop!", right there on live television before 50 million viewers - before then launching into "Radio Radio"...

You can watch it for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOuknbvu21Q

MM

Whoa, that looks totally staged. It's actually pretty cool.

An original act futzes up the start of the last song in their set; should they restart the song or keep on soldiering?

For example, the last song of our set on sunday night had a terrible, muddled start. I was in control of the backing tracks / drummer's click, so it was up to me whether or not we continued. I let it fly, and we had fully recovered before the first chorus (0:20 or so).

When we were discussing it after the fact, it was most people's opinion that we should have started over, and have a laugh about it. My thoughts were that it was a bit more professional to just recover and just keep going.

What do other people think?


If it's noticeable and it's going to mess up the rest of the song, laugh if off and start over.

We recently played a gig, and the guitard is supposed to start with this big wah intro thing, except she misses her wah so it sounds like a deflated balloon instead. (wahs on pods are sometime hard to click on)

We just started over otherwise it doesn't lead into the song right.

it's an original song. Who would know the difference?

There was a famous incident years ago on Saturday Night Live (American TV show), on which Elvis Costello and The Attractions appeared. They apparently got off to a rocky start on a tune - and Elvis stopped it by facing the band and yelling "Stop!", right there on live television before 50 million viewers - before then launching into "Radio Radio"...

You can watch it for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOuknbvu21Q

MM

yeah, they didn't mess up the first song, "Less Than Zero". I know that song well and it sounds fine to me.

I think E.C. just changed his mind as it started to do "Radio Radio" instead. Probably it was planned. Why? Radio, Radio is really an indictment of the media and what better place to do it then on his debut on American television?

IMO it depends on how far you got into the intro.

Very interesting topic. I would think you should just stop if it goes on to long, but my last gig's last song got off a bit rocky, we kept going and it was fine. Granted it was a few beats then we were on track.

If you flub the beginning, just starting over would be easy enough to laugh off. If you flub in the middle, you should try to salvage it because you'd look like fools to start over then. If you do stop, just start the next song. If you flub the end, just act like you planned it that way. :help:

I was taught not to stop once starting, but I can see where it would be better to stop some serious trainwrecks. Usually one person is the time keeper/leader, and that person is in charge of bringing it back together. I can only recall one big messup with my last original band. The drummer salvaged it by playing a simpler beat and hitting the one harder. That brought us all back pretty quick. With my new original band, the guitar/singer will mess up the intros all the time, but it's almost expected and part of the act. People laugh, especially the band because we've all had a few beers by then. :D

It mostly arises, in my band, with problematic tempos, not with a train wrecks.

Some songs can't be sung properly at tempos that are off, and our singer is quite sensitive to this problem.

The band has to have a sense of humor about it. Just stop, have a good laugh at yourself (and hope the audience laughs with you--don't worry, they probably will) and either start over or say, "Hey, let's come back to that one! It hasn't had enough time in the old crock pot yet..."

Er... something...

And if the band happens to be one of those ultra-uptight, takes-themselves-too-seriously types, the kind that doesn't crack a smile the entire show and then doesn't know what to do and gets all red-faced and awkward looking at the horrible misfortune of having looked "uncool" for all of two-and-a-half seconds, then, hey, I'll just sit back and have a good laugh myself at their expense.

In short, laugh with the audience or be laughed at by the audience.

Matt

It happens to all of us. If you play live, it's not "if" it'll happen, but "when"! When it happens to us, My favorite thing to do is yell "REDLIGHT"! We all stop and I say "Not that song, the other one" Then I yell "GREENLIGHT!" and we launch into the song. The crowd always laughs themselves silly and thinks it's part of the show.

ah, speaking of SNL, another way to deal with a bad start, but not recommended

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MziHkbJRMdU

ah, speaking of SNL, another way to deal with a bad start, but not recommended

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MziHkbJRMdU

indeed. well, being the female/cum sleeze version of Milli Vanilli is also not a way to establish musical creds either!

screwing up at the very start of the song = start again.

anywhere else in the song keep going, if oyu do stop... dont start the song again. and dont stand around talking trying to decide if youll restart from the beginning or where you stuffed up... i saw a band do this last weekend... not real good. a black spot on a great set it was.

ive always practiced keeping going if you make a mistake, and dont visibly acknowledge it... noone will notice most of the time.

We did this last night, 8th or 9th bar, drummer drops the beat entirely.

Me and guitarist both exclaim something along the lines of "whoaaaah it doesn't go like that...!" Audience laugh, we start again, no fuss.

what i've seen some bands do (warped tour- think fat mike, etc) is just get everyone to stop (doesn't need to be a 'hit a brick wall' type stop), just go up to the mic and say something that has nothing to do with anything ("i like turtles cause they have shells"). it's funny, and it's easy.

i agree with the others here, if it happens at the beginning start over, if it's in the middle just keep playing, people notice a lot less than what you think they do.

ah, speaking of SNL, another way to deal with a bad start, but not recommended

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MziHkbJRMdU

the good part is the band plays anyway without her and have a good time

The second time playing "I Wish" live I get lost after one round....I just went blank and shouted "you mean that one!?" to answer the lead singer stating I was going to start off a Stevie Wonder song for us. I started again and nailed it, sweating the whole way through and I practice this song literally with my eyes closed.

Maybe that's what I should have done.

Making a (an appropriate) joke is a good way to go. People seeing a band loose and having the ability to laugh at themselves makes for good damage control.

There was a famous incident years ago on Saturday Night Live (American TV show), on which Elvis Costello and The Attractions appeared. They apparently got off to a rocky start on a tune - and Elvis stopped it by facing the band and yelling "Stop!", right there on live television before 50 million viewers - before then launching into "Radio Radio"...

You can watch it for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOuknbvu21Q

MM

Actually Elvis was told they couldn't play Radio, Radio because of its portrayal of the media. He decided to play it anyway.

A couple people have kind of brought this up: does the band laugh on stage otherwise? If you guys are loose and interacting with the crowd already, stop and restart and they'll be on your side. If you pretty much do your show straight through, keep going and almost no one will know. If it's the only loose, laugh-with-us moment it will stand out. If not, it's just another cool thing you crazy guys did that night.

Years ago I saw Rush and they opened with Spirit of the Radio. They all ran out on stage and Alex launched into the signature lick - sort of. He stopped, leaned into the mike and said "oops" and started again. You could tell the lights, etc were a little off for the rest of the song.

When they finished, Geddy greeted the crowd, asked for a moment while they reset everything and told a funny story about their hotel and in about 30 seconds they launched into the rest of what was probably supposed to be 20-30 minutes of music to start the show.

I figure if Rush can handle it, its OK once in awhile.