You're walking to catch an act you've never seen, and somebody is making book on which player will be the sedentary member of the group. The smart money's on the bassist every time, even though once in awhile you get a Flea who screws up your action. We're boatanchors musically and it's easy to fall into that stoic, Rock Of Gibraltar thing as a subconscious reflection of our musical role. Bass players as a group seemingly have to work harder than others to overcome it. This is a great topic, though, and makes me think back a long ways...
I've personally been sort of a freelancer most of my musical life. I haven't had a lot of "regular" gigs. Tons of pickup gigs, studio gigs, pit orchestras, but not many long-term stage projects. I can really only think of four. And I guess in those cases I adopted whatever persona seemed appropriate for the show but never had a canned "act" I'd put on. One band was the obligatory junior high rock band and frankly, we were excellent for our age range. I backed a rhythm guitarist with a perpetual sway, a Van Halen wannabe lead player/vocalist, and a girl lead vocalist who moved around the stage a fair bit. I adopted the boatanchor schtick in that group basically because that's what was left. And it served a purpose. I became the "mysterious" member of the group (not necessarily the "boring" one), and I always held my own musically. Solidity and musicianship were all the capital I needed to get away with it in that context. And when people saw us play live, the vibe they got was of five distinct personalities assembled for a common purpose. I actually think the stoicism added interest to that lineup.
Later I played several years in an original Christian outfit that was incredibly strong and diverse musically, and somewhat choreographed from a stage perspective. There were five of us and we never had a "tight" live appearance. We were almost always decentralized. If a stage was 50 feet wide and 20 feet deep, we'd find a way to occupy every inch of it. So the three of us that were mobile had zones to move around in, and sometimes the guitarist and myself would venture out to opposite sides of the audience for a sort of wraparound effect. No earth-shaking stage shenanigans, but what moves we did make were geared toward making the show feel expansive and intimate all at the same time. Somehow we pulled it off.
I played a few years with a funky rock-n-soul act around Detroit and our lead singer usually commanded the stage herself. While the rest of us tended not to move far from our given positions, everybody had their own little gimmick. The guitarist would rotate 360 degrees, the trumpet player would twirl his horn on a finger, the sax player always danced a little between licks. I would typically get some groovin' bass face and slam my right heel with an intensity...or slide back next to the drummer on particularly potent grooves and egg him on. Audiences liked even that tiny bit of interplay and nobody ever commented that we were boring to watch, but again, the real frontline was owned by a large female singer who oozed charisma and purpose. Whatever we added behind her was just nuance. But it fit. I can recall one time we got into a funk groove big enough to drive a freight train through, and she was rattling the stage with her dancing. She threw me a solo and that one time - exactly one - I left my post, jumped on a table, and beat the crap out of it by myself for two minutes. That was all the deviation from normal required. People were swinging from the ceiling by then. The vibe was HUGE. But ordinarily, I pretty much just stayed put and locked it down. I guess there's a lot of "show" to be had even in small things that just serve to mix the visual up a little.
Played with a 50s - 70s rock thing for several more years, pretty much a good time bar band that audiences automatically felt comfortable and familiar with. Nobody gave a rip how we dressed, how we moved, what we did...they pretty much came for comfort music and to hoot and holler with their friends. It was a crazy band - the lead singer was also the sax player and had this sort of "everyman" stage personality, pocket drummer with a permagrin who occasionally threw sticks at people for his own amusement, me doing just whatever, an oft-spastic trombone player who showed up to every gig with different colored hair, and whichever one of three rotating guitarists decided to drop in and play. Frequently we'd bring in a local "guest artist" to contribute some tunes and knock around for half the night. Outwardly it was the loosest, sloppiest, least professional visual one can imagine but the music was always hot, bothered, bottom-heavy, and strong. The come-as-you-are nature of the whole thing was like our calling card and we became known for it. As such, we could get away with absolutely anything. We could all strike poses and never move and it was perfectly acceptable. We could freak out for no reason and that was just as acceptable. There were only a couple truly choreographed moments at every show, sort of like hooks. The coup de grace was the one and only song I sang, Turn The Page, and it always started with the lights going down and the sax player blowing from the other side of the room for an ambient effect. That was our trademark bit and it kept people coming back - just one predictable moment of something to hang their expectations on. Otherwise, the whole schtick with that band was questionable destination. We never knew where we were going but guaranteed we'd get you there by the middle of the third set. That made it much more about the music and the vibe than the stage antics, although they came in handy sometimes. The trombone player freaked me out one night when I started a Tom Waits tune he liked to sing and solo to ("Down In The Hole"). I owned the groove on our rendition of that song and he'd typically "defer" to me with his stage posture, but this particular night I looked up about one bar before he was supposed to start singing and discovered he wasn't on the stage anymore. In fact, he was nowhere. So there I was, on the "and-of-three" and wondering what was going to happen next. He busted through the front door of the place right on the downbeat, horn to face, and hit the floor in a Cossack pose, soloing instead of singing for the first verse. Then he got up and just sauntered through the crowd, playing this luxurious bluesy 'bone with his insane shades and half pink hair, and it galvanized the crowd. It was beautiful musically and unpredictable physically - brilliant, actually. He'd snuck out the back door of the place (by the stage) at the end of the preceding song and everybody had been having too much fun to notice. So that little bit of one-off, wacky theatrical improv was all it took to heighten the vibe for the rest of the night. Made me wish I'd have thought of it first, but I had no wireless rig...
Looking back, I guess I'd have been worse off if I locked myself into any specific stage mannerism. I've applied 'em all on different occasions, including "The Entwistle," and I like to think they've all made sense in context. I guess I'd rather be known for my playing than my ability to bust a move, but there's no debating that even a little bit of showmanship can get big reactions out of an audience.
I've personally been sort of a freelancer most of my musical life. I haven't had a lot of "regular" gigs. Tons of pickup gigs, studio gigs, pit orchestras, but not many long-term stage projects. I can really only think of four. And I guess in those cases I adopted whatever persona seemed appropriate for the show but never had a canned "act" I'd put on. One band was the obligatory junior high rock band and frankly, we were excellent for our age range. I backed a rhythm guitarist with a perpetual sway, a Van Halen wannabe lead player/vocalist, and a girl lead vocalist who moved around the stage a fair bit. I adopted the boatanchor schtick in that group basically because that's what was left. And it served a purpose. I became the "mysterious" member of the group (not necessarily the "boring" one), and I always held my own musically. Solidity and musicianship were all the capital I needed to get away with it in that context. And when people saw us play live, the vibe they got was of five distinct personalities assembled for a common purpose. I actually think the stoicism added interest to that lineup.
Later I played several years in an original Christian outfit that was incredibly strong and diverse musically, and somewhat choreographed from a stage perspective. There were five of us and we never had a "tight" live appearance. We were almost always decentralized. If a stage was 50 feet wide and 20 feet deep, we'd find a way to occupy every inch of it. So the three of us that were mobile had zones to move around in, and sometimes the guitarist and myself would venture out to opposite sides of the audience for a sort of wraparound effect. No earth-shaking stage shenanigans, but what moves we did make were geared toward making the show feel expansive and intimate all at the same time. Somehow we pulled it off.
I played a few years with a funky rock-n-soul act around Detroit and our lead singer usually commanded the stage herself. While the rest of us tended not to move far from our given positions, everybody had their own little gimmick. The guitarist would rotate 360 degrees, the trumpet player would twirl his horn on a finger, the sax player always danced a little between licks. I would typically get some groovin' bass face and slam my right heel with an intensity...or slide back next to the drummer on particularly potent grooves and egg him on. Audiences liked even that tiny bit of interplay and nobody ever commented that we were boring to watch, but again, the real frontline was owned by a large female singer who oozed charisma and purpose. Whatever we added behind her was just nuance. But it fit. I can recall one time we got into a funk groove big enough to drive a freight train through, and she was rattling the stage with her dancing. She threw me a solo and that one time - exactly one - I left my post, jumped on a table, and beat the crap out of it by myself for two minutes. That was all the deviation from normal required. People were swinging from the ceiling by then. The vibe was HUGE. But ordinarily, I pretty much just stayed put and locked it down. I guess there's a lot of "show" to be had even in small things that just serve to mix the visual up a little.
Played with a 50s - 70s rock thing for several more years, pretty much a good time bar band that audiences automatically felt comfortable and familiar with. Nobody gave a rip how we dressed, how we moved, what we did...they pretty much came for comfort music and to hoot and holler with their friends. It was a crazy band - the lead singer was also the sax player and had this sort of "everyman" stage personality, pocket drummer with a permagrin who occasionally threw sticks at people for his own amusement, me doing just whatever, an oft-spastic trombone player who showed up to every gig with different colored hair, and whichever one of three rotating guitarists decided to drop in and play. Frequently we'd bring in a local "guest artist" to contribute some tunes and knock around for half the night. Outwardly it was the loosest, sloppiest, least professional visual one can imagine but the music was always hot, bothered, bottom-heavy, and strong. The come-as-you-are nature of the whole thing was like our calling card and we became known for it. As such, we could get away with absolutely anything. We could all strike poses and never move and it was perfectly acceptable. We could freak out for no reason and that was just as acceptable. There were only a couple truly choreographed moments at every show, sort of like hooks. The coup de grace was the one and only song I sang, Turn The Page, and it always started with the lights going down and the sax player blowing from the other side of the room for an ambient effect. That was our trademark bit and it kept people coming back - just one predictable moment of something to hang their expectations on. Otherwise, the whole schtick with that band was questionable destination. We never knew where we were going but guaranteed we'd get you there by the middle of the third set. That made it much more about the music and the vibe than the stage antics, although they came in handy sometimes. The trombone player freaked me out one night when I started a Tom Waits tune he liked to sing and solo to ("Down In The Hole"). I owned the groove on our rendition of that song and he'd typically "defer" to me with his stage posture, but this particular night I looked up about one bar before he was supposed to start singing and discovered he wasn't on the stage anymore. In fact, he was nowhere. So there I was, on the "and-of-three" and wondering what was going to happen next. He busted through the front door of the place right on the downbeat, horn to face, and hit the floor in a Cossack pose, soloing instead of singing for the first verse. Then he got up and just sauntered through the crowd, playing this luxurious bluesy 'bone with his insane shades and half pink hair, and it galvanized the crowd. It was beautiful musically and unpredictable physically - brilliant, actually. He'd snuck out the back door of the place (by the stage) at the end of the preceding song and everybody had been having too much fun to notice. So that little bit of one-off, wacky theatrical improv was all it took to heighten the vibe for the rest of the night. Made me wish I'd have thought of it first, but I had no wireless rig...
Looking back, I guess I'd have been worse off if I locked myself into any specific stage mannerism. I've applied 'em all on different occasions, including "The Entwistle," and I like to think they've all made sense in context. I guess I'd rather be known for my playing than my ability to bust a move, but there's no debating that even a little bit of showmanship can get big reactions out of an audience.
