Involving the audience

[Mankind]

Hey all, a interesting few questions for you all...

1) How do you involve the audience at your gigs or don't you at all?

2) Do you do it between songs or do it during the songs?

3) Do you think they appricate it or do you think they'd prefer you to just get on with it?

My answers are:
1) Of course audience involvement is essential for any band.

2) During and between songs. Between songs we talk (plurally) to the audience and tell a joke maybe. During songs we involve them via clapping, getting them to join in with the chorus or a echo effect or to get them to sing along with our signer who'll go through the audience looking for people who know the lyrics and who are willing to sing into the mic.

3) From the audiences i've been in they all enjoy the gigs much more because they feel more involved and know we appricate them, if it weren't for them, we wouldn't be gigging.

My 2 cents.

 

[montrocity]

You got it. If you're not there to give the crowd a good time you may as well have stayed home. It's all well and good to be able to play well as a band but let's face it, you wouldn't be in a band if you didn't like to get other people off on your stuff. If it was all just for the sake of being an awesome musician, which is a very worthy cause indeed, we would all just be sitting in our basements playing solos to ourselves and maybe an all to appreciative pet dog.

These following comments come from the point of view of someone who has played in front of countless "local" bar audiences. You're not there playing to a crowd of loyal fans who came from far and wide just to see their infallible rock idols, but a local crowd of average joes who just got off work and plan to enjoy their weekend kicking back a few beers at the local pub. And maybe catching some good live music in the process.

If you take the time to look people in the eye and say something to them, they aren't going to have a choice but to respond. Especially if you have 130+ decibles behind you. The more they get off the more you get off and the more you get off the more they do.

Know your crowd, cater to them, have a diverse pool of tunes to pull from and it's all good to go. Not to say you have to sell out. No band with any integrity can play songs they don't even like. Just think of the blues brothers playing rawhide and that's what I mean.

A good frontman can go a long way in selling even a mediocre band.

Be animated when you play. You can be up there making a total fool of yourself and it won't even matter. Jump around, scream, sweat like a pig. If you're having fun they'll pick up on it.

Walk right up to somebody and play to them. If they came there for the purpose of seeing live music they will appreciate this, even if they don't know you and your band in particular.

If you're playing near your hometown, make sure you get all your friends out to the show. These are the people that will bring the rest of the crowd into it.

And, above all, make sure you smile. After all, if your not having fun, quit.

 

[Brendan]

Start a riot. Kids these days love riots.

 

[Ben Jammin']

amen to that

but seriously audience involvment is everything. a while ago my band were pretty ****e and we still did good gigs cos our vocalist is so outspoken and we jump around a lot.

 

[icks]

Usually we invovled the audiance in the intro of a song, that I begin a the bass.

It's like OOOOOOOhhhhhhhh ooooh oooh ooooh oooooooooooohh

my 2 cents.

 

[Nick Gann]

This local band that my friends are in have a song called Dirty Jew. The bass player in their band was dumped because he was jewish and the girl didn't know at first, and she called him a dirty jew when she found out. Well, as he (the bass player) is singing, in between the last verse and the last chorus, the whole band stops, and he says a jew joke (the best one is "Why do Jew's have such big noses? Because air is free"), and everyone laughs their butts off. Everyone laughs every time because its never the same joke twice. Its pretty funny because its actually part of a song, so its pretty cool.

Another really easy way to get the crowd involved is to play "Everybody Jump". It works pretty well.

 

[szvonek]

Oh no.

 

[szvonek]

Walk right up to somebody and play to them. If they came there for the purpose of seeing live music they will appreciate this, even if they don't know you and your band in particular.

/QUOTE]

Personally I feel really awkward if anyone does this to me...I never know what to do in that situation. And what if the guy playing just sucks? That's extra awkward, plus it just looks a little showy IMO. That's probably why I don't like it. Now if it's Joe Perry playing in front of me, well OK, maybe I'll let him.

Obviously if you're going to do it you better be sure the person is digging what you're playing first.