Set List, Show, or just 'Wing it?"

[newwavefrank]

Being too rigid about the set list can be deadly too, though. In my first gigging band - which was only a couple of years prior - we had a gig at a Halloween party. It was kind of pulling teeth until we played the Black Keys' "Gold on the Ceiling" and then the room lit up. A woman stepped up to me and said, "Play more dance songs, we want to dance more!" Well, the next song on the list was Rush's "Closer to the Heart," which is anything BUT a dance song. I leaned over to the BL and said, "Let's skip Rush, they want to keep dancing!", to which he replied, "No, we're going to play this one now." There was nothing I could do about it, we played Rush, and the dance floor emptied out and stayed that way the rest of the night no matter what we played.

 

[newwavefrank]

Most of the time being too rigid about the set list is only a problem because the set list was bad to begin with. It seems like almost every time I hear a story like this, whomever did the setlist had no idea people would actually want to dance. A good strong setlist with upbeat dance tunes rarely needs to be changed. IMO YMMV etc

 

[Michedelic]

There used to be an art to sequencing an album…rousing opener, keep the energy up on the next tune, change gears a bit on the third, then maybe something a bit slower next, and so on. I think that should correlate to set construction, but with options just in case the crowd throws you a curve ball.

 

[pepj]

It's pretty basic really, you need to get hold of the audience either by playing songs the audience can really listen to, sing or dance to.
And if a BL picked a song against that flow the way he did...well, he needs sacking.

 

[51PRI]

Most of the time being too rigid about the set list is only a problem because the set list was bad to begin with. It seems like almost every time I hear a story like this, whomever did the setlist had no idea people would actually want to dance. A good strong setlist with upbeat dance tunes rarely needs to be changed. IMO YMMV etc

It seems more and more that we're getting fewer people who want to dance.

How did it go?

It went okay. The lead guitar player was feeding the band leader songs with it seemed like no regard for what the audience might like, just what he wanted to play. Without a written setlist the BL seems to gravitate to old chestnuts like Move it on Over, Keep your Hands to Yourself and Gimme 3 Steps.

 

[Dave W]

We basically wing it. We've got a basic structure down that we loosely follow. A bunch of 1st set songs, 2nd set songs, 3rd set songs, and stuff that we don't play at every gig/backups.
We'll read the crowd and give them what they want, generally the BL calls out the songs. It works very well for us.

The only issue that I have with it; the BL relies on a tablet to have the lyrics up for some songs. He does NOT read them or even look at them most of the time...but it's a crutch for sure. Because of this there can be dead time between some of the songs as he's searching through his list to pull them up for essentially no reason. We can burn through a bunch of songs back to back and then it comes to a halt while he searches the list. I hate it.

 

[WI Short Scaler]

Most of the time being too rigid about the set list is only a problem because the set list was bad to begin with. It seems like almost every time I hear a story like this, whomever did the setlist had no idea people would actually want to dance. A good strong setlist with upbeat dance tunes rarely needs to be changed. IMO YMMV etc

Couldn't agree more. I do our setlists and I've been doing it for awhile. I use an xcel file and color code which member sings each song. It's very tempting to have Carmen sing everything since she has the best voice but the guitarist and I like to contribute as well and we aren't total slouches vocally. Almost all of our stuff is pretty upbeat so don't have to be as concerned about dance/non-dance songs. I'm sure it's not perfect but about the only time we change now is to throw in Birthday/Beatles when someone asks so that's kind of a success.

 

[51PRI]

Couldn't agree more. I do our setlists and I've been doing it for awhile. I use an xcel file and color code which member sings each song.....

That's the way I did it in a previous band. In THIS band the BL sings like 95% of the songs so it's really more about getting some kind of flow going. Many times without a setlist I have to tell them to play a slow song, which almost always fills the dance floor.

...The only issue that I have with it; the BL relies on a tablet to have the lyrics up for some songs. He does NOT read them or even look at them most of the time...but it's a crutch for sure. Because of this there can be dead time between some of the songs as he's searching through his list to pull them up for essentially no reason. We can burn through a bunch of songs back to back and then it comes to a halt while he searches the list. I hate it.

Our BL does the same thing, except he DOES look at his tablet, stares at it, really.