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How long are your gigs?

#21
I'm in a band playing children's music. Usually it's only about 45 min to 1 hour as the attention span decreases significantly after that. I have played 2-45 min sets before though.

It's a great gig as it's always in the late morning early afternoon, I get there an hour before playing, most times there is already a PA there to use, and I'm done and home before dinner.

And I make a minimum of $200-$500 per gig depending on the distance. Nothing like parents spending $600-$800 on their 6 year olds birthday. :rollno:



:hiding:



I also play in a blues/classic rock band that plays on average of 3 x 50 minute sets either from 9pm to 12am OR 10pm to 1am. Those gigs I get the more realistic payment of $75 to $125. I much prefer the daytime gigs.
 
#22
I don't get the idea of multiple sets with 40ish songs. Are you guys in cover bands, or are you just really prolific song writers? :confused:

As for me, I'm in a high school ska band with 6 originals and 1 cover. We generally play a 30-45 minute set within a multi-band show; sometimes 20ish if we're in a hurry and go straight from 1 song to the next, 45 if we talk to the crowd between songs and whatnot.
 
#23
Shroom said:
I don't get the idea of multiple sets with 40ish songs. Are you guys in cover bands, or are you just really prolific song writers? :confused:

As for me, I'm in a high school ska band with 6 originals and 1 cover. We generally play a 30-45 minute set within a multi-band show; sometimes 20ish if we're in a hurry and go straight from 1 song to the next, 45 if we talk to the crowd between songs and whatnot.
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Doing 3-4 50 minute sets usually means either doing covers or a mix of originals & covers. It's usually pretty easy (sometimes) to put together 3 sets of cover tunes & gig.
 
#25
In my main bands, 45 minutes is pretty much optimal. We like to put on a good show, and you can't maintain a consistent energy level over an hour and a half set. Besides, I think people start to get ear fatigue when an original band plays laboriously long sets.

I do the sideman thing too where we'll play 90+ minute sets for festivals or casino shows or what-have-you and I manage but those are more singer-songwriter types of gigs where I'm not expected to put on a crazy performance and I can just lay back and groove. Those aren't too bad either, though I have discovered that my bladder at times disagrees!
 
#28
ah jeez... it varies.. Wednesday nights is a house band gig for me where i'm like a husky getting whupped across the Yukon, MUSH! ~ MUSH!, as i play from 7:30pm until 1:30am
usually six 45-minute sets!! sometimes it's staggered into eight 30-min sets depending on attendance (we have various singers/horn players/instrumentalists, et al., who join us throughout the night).

but my other nights are comparatively lax, sundays and tuesdays i go from 9pm to 1am, and play every other Fri. night from 10pm to 2am (1:30 usually). the usual is three 45-min sets... (this is mainly in San Francisco, with occasional shows in Berkeley).



scottbass said:
In another thread I mentioned performing 40 songs and got a surprised reply from someone in a different part of the contry. That makes me ask the following questions:

How long/how many songs does your band play in a one-band, one-night bar gig?

What other kinds of gigs do you play, and how long/how many songs are they?

In the Mpls/St. Paul area the norm for a one-band, one-night bar gig is 3 hours of music in a 4 hour period. Three one-hour sets with half-hour breaks in between. About 40 songs played straight up, fewer (maybe 30 - 35) if you really stretch the solos.

Multi-band gigs, either at a bar, club or outdoor festival, usually consist of one set, 45 minutes or one hour, 10 to 15 songs.

How about in your locale?
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#29
lawsonman said:
It's amazing all the short shows on here.I couldn't even get myself to load my car up for a 45 minute gig.Let along set up and tear down.
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Well, going by your myspace link, you play in a cover band. I can't imagine it'd even be worth the money to you to play for 45 minutes. It's completely different for those of us in original acts. I have honestly never heard a club show with an original band playing more than an hour and most audience members certainly don't want to hear an original band play that long.
 
#30
When playing as Daisy Cutter (all originals) we usually do one 50 - 60 minute set. If it's a good show with lots of energy (and only originals), one hour IS enough...

When doing the selling-your-%&§-for-money gig (covers) we usually do two sets to a total of 2andahalf hours.
 
#31
When playing together with other bands its originals for 45 mins. When were out on our own 2 x 45 mins and a mix of originals and covers. We're pretty active on stage so anything longer than that becomes very tiring. Besides you need enough time after a gig to have a couple of ales with friends and fans.
 
#32
Fnord Explorer said:
Well, going by your myspace link, you play in a cover band. I can't imagine it'd even be worth the money to you to play for 45 minutes. It's completely different for those of us in original acts. I have honestly never heard a club show with an original band playing more than an hour and most audience members certainly don't want to hear an original band play that long.
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True,when I played in a band we had in the late 70's we did about half originals and half covers so we could do our 4 hours.
 
#33
guitfiddle0409 said:
We usually play three one-hour sets. It's a mix of classic blues/rock trio tunes with some originals thrown in as well. The Cream stuff seems to get the best reaction for some reason.
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I am very curious...which Cream got good reactions for you? We recently added a Clapton min-set with Cocaine, Badge and Tell the Truth. Lots of people play Cocaine of course (we use an odd arrangement), but I don't know how often the others are played by cover bands. They were fairly well received, but I'm not sure how familiar the audience was with them. We're looking to add some more Cream, and we're wondering how far we can go beyond SOYL and White Room.

Back to the topic, the longest show we played was New Year's Eve, three and one half hours, broken into three sets. It worked out to be 35 songs, all covers. When we have headed up bills in local shows with two or three acts, we have started after a brief intermission, then closed out the night with a straight set of 1:15 to 1:30, depending upon the crowd and the encore situation. These usually mean 17-20 songs, almost all covers.
 
#36
scootron said:
I am very curious...which Cream got good reactions for you? We recently added a Clapton min-set with Cocaine, Badge and Tell the Truth. Lots of people play Cocaine of course (we use an odd arrangement), but I don't know how often the others are played by cover bands. They were fairly well received, but I'm not sure how familiar the audience was with them. We're looking to add some more Cream, and we're wondering how far we can go beyond SOYL and White Room.
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Not to get off topic but off the top of my head we do the following Cream tunes (albeit some of them are their blues covers):

Sunshine of Your Love
Outside Woman Blues
Crossroads
Spoonful

They all get good reactions.
 
#37
Sunshine of Your Love
Outside Woman Blues
Crossroads
Spoonful
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Plus Whiteroom and Badge. Bartender on Kodiak Island would give us a round of drinks for Badge

OR - rock covers = 9p - 2a, 10 min brk per hr
WA - rock cover = 9p - 1:30a, 10 min brk

Rock origs = 3 11/4 sets from 9:30 on, long breaks

Jazz - 3 sets = 1 x 1h, 2 x 45m, 10 min+ brk
Orig Jazz - 'til the the tomatoes start to hurt
 
#38
My band is an all original band and we blaze through our 7 song set in about 35 minutes.

Our longest song is over 6 minutes and our two shortest songs are about a minute and a half.

That 35 minutes does include a little crowd talk, but we usually just keep the songs flowing into eachother.

Peace

-Benny
 

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