Whaddaya do when the gig is going really great?

[Slevage]

Private gig— keep it going.

Club gig— take a break.

I used to play a neighborhood bar in the late 70’s/early 80’s. We we required to play 1/2 hour sets and take 1/2 hour breaks. If we didn’t stop playing, the crowd never stopped dancing. They only bought drinks when we took a break.

 

[SAlcott]

2+ hour sets for a few years got me Carpal tunnel surgery on my left hand.

 

[bigboy_78]

2.5 hours? I've wet my pants by then. A quick break won't clear the dance floor as fast as a puddle of bass player urine.

 

[Paulabass]

Just keep playing.
Actually, I wish I could play one 2+ hour set in a bar.

 

[40Hz]

Don’t kill the grove.
Don’t kill the buzz.
Don’t clear the dance floor.

My bands always kept playing through as long as the crowd stayed with us.

Of such stuff are reputations built.

 

[Major_Rager_4MF]

No breaks. If the crowd's dancing then we're playing, or maybe it's when we're playing then they're dancing lol. When you break, people make for the bar, bathroom, or worse, the exit. We are 3 guys and a chick singer. She drinks a ton of water while singing so she needs to pee once or twice a night. But we always time it for a solo so there's no stopping. We've gone as long as 4.5 hours. As long as no one is hurting, the crowd loves it and the bar owners love it. Rock on.

 

[dbase]

Don't stop and lose the crowd... and only play the slow songs at the end of the gig.

 

[dbsfgyd1]

I mean incredibly great!

The band is sizzling, the dance floor is full. And you've been playing an hour+ (actually 90 minutes when I first checked).

Do you stop and take a break, or ride the energy and keep it going?

We played a wedding last night and went with the 'keep it going' option. Played another 60+ minutes and wrapped it up. Crowd loved us. They. Never. Stopped. Dancing.

I think if we had taken a break, it would have been hard to get the energy back up to where it was. Absolutely amazing show.

With my stage presence, usually outdone by a potted plant, what do you expect me to do, sprout more leaves????

 

[petrus61]

What do you do when the gig is going great? Eff it up, of course!

 

[buldog5151bass]

Often, it's the second break of the night that is the killer - that's when some people decide to leave. Rather than three hour long sets, we've started doing two longer sets for this reason.

 

[thehindteet]

Do you stop and take a break, or ride the energy and keep it going?

We played a wedding last night and went with the 'keep it going' option. Played another 60+ minutes and wrapped it up. Crowd loved us. They. Never. Stopped. Dancing.

it sounds like you already know what the right thing to do is. I can wait to take a leak if everybody is having a good time, and although I savor the booze, part of the reason I don't drink on gigs is because it makes me sleepy and have to go to the can, so I drink enough water to cover the sweat but thats it.

The way the bands I gig with handle it is to just talk on stage. If somebody is dying and we're on a good run, we'll just play a tune where somebody can step away, but in general if I see a crowd come in I wanna see what we can do, and if you're playing so physically hard that you can't go on without a 15 minute break, you have a different issue that needs dealing with.

 

[InhumanResource]

I agree completely with that.

Worst NYE gig I ever did was one where the BL was asked repeatedly to go with higher energy music early in the gig. He refused, saying, “I don’t want to burn the crowd out too early.”

After the ball dropped, everyone left. We were told to stop playing and GTFO.

Lesson learned.

I don't understand BL's that do this. Gotta break up a killer set with one to "slow em down" or throw in a few tunes nobody friggin knows to "show diversity". Just shut up and play more JT so we get paid already.

 

[NZBassman]

I agree completely with that.

Worst NYE gig I ever did was one where the BL was asked repeatedly to go with higher energy music early in the gig. He refused, saying, “I don’t want to burn the crowd out too early.”

After the ball dropped, everyone left. We were told to stop playing and GTFO.

Lesson learned.

This happened many years ago in one of my old bands - we didn't know how to structure our sets (or that there was such a thing)
It was our first time playing at this place and we played all our slower / MOR songs in the first set, then after the set the owner / manager comes up and politely tells us to pack our stuff up and go (he did pay us).
Our drummer said, "Oh but in our next set we've got Lenny Kravitz, Metallica, Nirvana, Blink 182, Green Day....etc..." the owner / manager replied "You should have played some of that stuff earlier"

Lesson learnt!

 

[vvvmmm]

Whaddaya do when the gig is going really great?

Usually? Do something really dumb ...

 

[Wasnex]

if you're playing so physically hard that you can't go on without a 15 minute break, you have a different issue that needs dealing with.

I don't think it's about how hard you play, in my case it's either about imobilizing the arm in a position that restricts blood flow or some sort of pressure on a nerve. I strap my bass so the height is pretty much the same regardless of whether I am standing or sitting; so not too high and not too low. In my experience, too high causes problems with the plucking hand and too low causes problems with the fretting hand.

At the time I referenced in my previous post, I was a full time pro musician who might rehearse 4 or 5 hours throughout the day and then do a gig that night. A lot of players will develop problems if forced to frequently play 2+ hour-long sets, because it's actually pretty hard on the body. Just because you can do it without problems, does not mean it is ethical to force others to do it. Not everyone is cut out to run marathons.

I am sure that there are plenty of things that you can do better than I. Perhaps I could show you a trick or too as well. The point is we are all different and typically bring something unique and awesome to the fight. If part of the job description is to routinely play for 3 hours nonstop, you get the job. I could do it occasionally, but ultimately I don't think it's worth the wear and tear on my body to do it on a recurring basis.

 

[BAG]

What do I do when everything is going well and the whole band sounds great and i'm playing better than ever without missing a single note?

Usually that is when my concentration wanders, I miss the fact that we're up to the bridge or chorus and play some complete clams!

 

[HolmeBass]

I do prefer doing two ~90 minute sets, but longer than about 90 minutes a set and my concentration suffers. Eventually around 2 hrs. the music starts to suffer. Better to take a quick break and keep playing well in my opinion.

I have never been a fan of three or four short sets; always try to do just two sets. None of my bands ever sign up for more than 4 hrs of music, so it’s pretty easy to 90 to 100 min first set, long break, and come back with a 110 min set, something like that to cover 4 hrs.

 

[jamro217]

These days when the gig is going really great, the alarm goes off and I wake up. In the event you're in that situation for real, Be Bop until you D Rop. Nothing spoils a show worse than stopping the momentum. Imagine moving a heavy piece of furniture up a stairwell. "On three. One, two, Three!! (a series of grunts, groans and thumping...) and then "Whew, we made it." Imagine stopping halfway up. How much harder would it be to regain the lost momentum in order to finish the job? Think of it this way, you're carrying the entertainment/buzz/mojo of the room. Getting your second wind to move a stuck couch is a day at the beach compared to regaining that rare a moment as "Gig Bliss". Unless the cops raid the joint, keep playing no matter what.

 

[JimmyM]

My secret weapon for long gigs is my Danelectro DC Bass.

Danos seem like they should fall apart the second you try to put strings on them, but they are really good and surprisingly versatile basses. I can even get a workable slap sound out of my 09 Longhorn. Doesn't hurt my feelings that most of them weigh around 5 lbs, either.

 

[cnltb]

What does the contract say?