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Stage Presence
- Thread starter MichaelScott
- Start date
I try to seek eye contact with the audience (if possible, stage lights can be a problem), smile and just let go with the groove. IMO, the best thing you can do that can't be taken as forced or contrived (like unnatural poses worked out beforehand, windmilling, jumping around just for the sake of it... all that stuff just seems silly to me), is to look like you're enjoying your time up there. But I guess this isn't "cool" to do in some genres?
Smile, run around like a lunatic, jump on and off anything on stage including any items of club equipment that I can walk around on.
One of the best ones I did was at a club where the pa cabs were slightly infront and off to one side of the stage. About 4 foot away from the left hand cab was a three foot high 8 inch wide table which ran from the stage to the bar (about 30 feet) used as a place for people to put their drinks whilst they were on the dance floor. I'd put a chair behind the PA cab so I could get onto it easily for a bit of bouncing around on. But when I got up there in our second set I spotted the table. Took me two goes but I managed to jump from the cab onto the table where I proceeded to walk towards the bar whilst playing and without missing a beat
One of the best ones I did was at a club where the pa cabs were slightly infront and off to one side of the stage. About 4 foot away from the left hand cab was a three foot high 8 inch wide table which ran from the stage to the bar (about 30 feet) used as a place for people to put their drinks whilst they were on the dance floor. I'd put a chair behind the PA cab so I could get onto it easily for a bit of bouncing around on. But when I got up there in our second set I spotted the table. Took me two goes but I managed to jump from the cab onto the table where I proceeded to walk towards the bar whilst playing and without missing a beat
Headbang
Play like Finnish bands do (with legs spread. Eh, I know that doesnt sound good)
Roll on the floor
Play standing on one knee with your bass almost on the floor with one end (like playing a double-bass)
and the most important...
Wear a gas mask!
Play like Finnish bands do (with legs spread. Eh, I know that doesnt sound good)
Roll on the floor
Play standing on one knee with your bass almost on the floor with one end (like playing a double-bass)
and the most important...
Wear a gas mask!
Oysterman said:
Me too. Eye contact with the dancers, smile, tap my foot to the beat and just enjoy myself and the experience of playing.
I've also been an audience spectator (as many in this forum likely have been too) and have been witness to what I would call "overembellishment." I'd guess that there are just as many (if not more) as would call that stuff silly rather than think its cool. But I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.
I agree that you should just be feeling the music but depending on the type of music some things that you say look silly can be a great type of showmanship. Definately blues or jazz or country or any bands like that jumping around headbanging you look like a complete idiot but a heavier rock, punk or metal show or whatever i think jumping and headbanging and such convey that energy that you are putting into the music.
Way back in the ancient days when dinosaurs ruled the Earth and I still gigged regularly, we did most all of the normal stuff I have read here. But we also did some cooler things that I am surprised no one else has mentioned in this thread.
My favorite was when we played in front of a movie screen wearing all white while a film was projected on us. After doing this a few times someone suggested putting us behind the screen, playing an old silent movie (one intended to be soundless, We used 'Metropolis' It's a classic.) and improvised a score for the movie as it went. We did it. It was great. I loved it and then I found out that the bit was stolen from Dallas art band BL Lacerta. They were still doing it so we never could do it again. But the home movies showing on us in front of the screen? We did that one on and off for another year.
We had a 'sacrificial camcorder' that recorded no sound anyway, so who cares if it gets broken worse. We hooked a ridiculously long cable to it. Dumped the output through a laptop to a projector, and would send someone out onto the dancefloor, filming at mostly thigh to chest level with sweeping zooms, holding it above his head and soinning it, etc. With all the 'take' from the camcorder going straight to the screen above us. Eventually he got bumped one time too many while running around on the dance floor, and dropped the camera. It died. But it wasn't real healthy after yanking the cable out of the plug about a thousand times from people steping on it.
My favorite was when we played in front of a movie screen wearing all white while a film was projected on us. After doing this a few times someone suggested putting us behind the screen, playing an old silent movie (one intended to be soundless, We used 'Metropolis' It's a classic.) and improvised a score for the movie as it went. We did it. It was great. I loved it and then I found out that the bit was stolen from Dallas art band BL Lacerta. They were still doing it so we never could do it again. But the home movies showing on us in front of the screen? We did that one on and off for another year.
We had a 'sacrificial camcorder' that recorded no sound anyway, so who cares if it gets broken worse. We hooked a ridiculously long cable to it. Dumped the output through a laptop to a projector, and would send someone out onto the dancefloor, filming at mostly thigh to chest level with sweeping zooms, holding it above his head and soinning it, etc. With all the 'take' from the camcorder going straight to the screen above us. Eventually he got bumped one time too many while running around on the dance floor, and dropped the camera. It died. But it wasn't real healthy after yanking the cable out of the plug about a thousand times from people steping on it.
And this one is VERY important.
Costumes.
Costumes can make you look either ultra cool or uber-dorky.
Now here's the catch. You don't know which one it will be till the crowd reacts. Although, strangely the most uniformly positive response was always to the Halloween gig where the (male)guitar player in a friends band dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, complete with a little stuffed Yorkie dog swinging from his headstock.
And don't wear them every show. 'Cause that would just be wierd.
Costumes.
Costumes can make you look either ultra cool or uber-dorky.
Now here's the catch. You don't know which one it will be till the crowd reacts. Although, strangely the most uniformly positive response was always to the Halloween gig where the (male)guitar player in a friends band dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, complete with a little stuffed Yorkie dog swinging from his headstock.
And don't wear them every show. 'Cause that would just be wierd.
Shoka42 said:
Link Removed
Yeah, my problem with that is that I actually look like I'm having an orgasm while I do that, so my hair (btw, this makes my hair look shorter than it is in reality) covers my face...Anyway, on the last note of a song if it's really hard after a note that's been held for a while (see end of Paradise City), I do a hard pluck, and lift the neck up. Headbanging is fun, but when I'm close to a mic, the hair hits the mic (that's a problem). Uh, I like interacting with the drummer more than the guitarist, and I (once in a while) will make it look like I hit one of his 10 cymbals by lowering my headstock as he hits it & raising it after he hits it. Uh, 2 quick slides all the way up the neck just looks cool. When we cover master of puppets (very well I might add) and we get to the slow interlude, I usually look up & I have been told that I look VERY stoned. I'm the sometimes laid back, sometimes insane, always most charismatic, cool looking member of my band. Instead of headbanging, lots of times I just bob my head if it's funky,
