What audiences hate about live musicians

[mambo4]

TLDR

• looking nervous
• talking too much
• audience participation demands (unearned)
• dead air
• too loud
• your ego ( expecting audience to pay attention, unearned )
• looking miserable
• showing off (.. stuff that only musicians appreciate)
• not reading the room and adjusting
• taking yourself too seriously

I think all the points have merit. You just have to dedicate some honest thought to the audience's experience.
most of it is covered on under the advice "look like your having fun and the audience will pick up on it"

 

[gln1955]

We'll agree to disagree then @OrvCraig because every live show I've ever attended or every gig I played was made better with audience participation, crowd engagement, and all that stuff. Some of my best memories were shouting along with the crowd and feeling like I was a part of something, like I belonged.

Audience participation for the win! Bands exclaiming "Clap your hands!" or "let's see you make some noise!" is fun and I love it! Yeah, sometimes it might feel try-hard, but I gotta respect them trying hard to get the crowd going. Even if it goes completely wrong, at least it's never boring.

I think this falls under "read the room". If your audience wants more engagement, they'll let you know pretty clearly.

 

[GretschWretch]

Back to my friends playing the eatery (a pizza place that has the best Caesar salad I have ever tasted). They don't ask the house to clap or participate; on appropriate songs -- "Louisiana Saturday Night" for example -- the BL just starts clapping and the house follows right along. No pressure, no coercion, just do it.

Somehow, recently and weirdly, I have become part of the act. The band does two one-hour sets and I usually leave with about to songs remaining in the second set. Soon as I get up and head toward the door the BL says, "Harry's leaving. Everybody say good night to Harry!" And be doggoned if they don't wish me goodnight. Not just a few, but the whole house, cooks and servers included. And of course I have to acknowledge them, which I do by turning just as I reach the door and waving.

But I still don't get a cut of the tip jar.

 

[dune]

I know that I can’t stand it. Looking back on all the concerts I’ve seen in the last 45 years, I can’t think of one time when audience participation is even part of the memory, let alone something that made it better. The one exception might be Jimmy Buffet, but he didn’t ask, it just happened.

For a period of time, it seemed like every concert we went to — and these were small, esoteric, world music type events all ended with a song during which they implored the entire crowd to dance. I too don't care for that kind of stuff at all. I thought it retroactively made the entire shows cheaper and more pedestrian. A lot of people were clearly into it though. Maybe I just hadn't had whatever they were having.

 

[EdwardofHuncote]

I didn't watch the video. It screams cringe clickbait to me, and maybe that's unfairly judging but I got better things to watch on YouTube.

Regarding tipping the band though, one of the most inventive and unobnoxious ways I've seen is used at a fairly nice restaurant venue I used to play at once a month or so. There is an envelope on each table, (or more for multiple place settings) clearly marked as tipping for the band. We did great with that strategy. I never asked, but I assume the hostess mentioned it.

Probably won't work everywhere.

 

[Liam Wald]

Why do the people who make these kinds of videos make those stupid faces in the thumbnail?

Could it be that stupid people who make stupid video's just naturally have stupid faces?
Just a wild guess.

 

[5StringBlues]

They hate our armadillos.

 

[dune]

We'll agree to disagree then @OrvCraig because every live show I've ever attended or every gig I played was made better with audience participation, crowd engagement, and all that stuff. Some of my best memories were shouting along with the crowd and feeling like I was a part of something, like I belonged.

Audience participation for the win! Bands exclaiming "Clap your hands!" or "let's see you make some noise!" is fun and I love it! Yeah, sometimes it might feel try-hard, but I gotta respect them trying hard to get the crowd going. Even if it goes completely wrong, at least it's never boring.

It's not you, it's me. Inviting folks to the dance floor and encouraging tipping of the bartenders and wait staff - NOT the band, is one thing. But I hope to make it to my grave without EVER hearing another band say "Make some noise!" and its invariable follow up: "I can't HEAR you!!!". Ugh. Makes me wanna gag just thinking about it. Just like bands who beg for inauthentic encores with: "You wanna hear one more?" If you have to ask, you already have your answer - "No." Now get off my lawn so I can get back to yelling at clouds.

 

[dune]

Back to my friends playing the eatery (a pizza place that has the best Caesar salad I have ever tasted). They don't ask the house to clap or participate; on appropriate songs -- "Louisiana Saturday Night" for example -- the BL just starts clapping and the house follows right along. No pressure, no coercion, just do it.

Somehow, recently and weirdly, I have become part of the act. The band does two one-hour sets and I usually leave with about to songs remaining in the second set. Soon as I get up and head toward the door the BL says, "Harry's leaving. Everybody say good night to Harry!" And be doggoned if they don't wish me goodnight. Not just a few, but the whole house, cooks and servers included. And of course I have to acknowledge them, which I do by turning just as I reach the door and waving.

But I still don't get a cut of the tip jar.

Now, that's great stuff.

 

[dune]

TLDR

• looking nervous
• talking too much
• audience participation demands (unearned)
• dead air
• too loud
• your ego ( expecting audience to pay attention, unearned )
• looking miserable
• showing off (.. stuff that only musicians appreciate)
• not reading the room and adjusting
• taking yourself too seriously

I think all the points have merit. You just have to dedicate some honest thought to the audience's experience.
most of it is covered on under the advice "look like your having fun and the audience will pick up on it"

One of the things I remember reading ages ago in "The Platinum Rainbow" boiled down to this: "Most, if not all, of the folks out there watching me have at least a part of themselves who would love to be up here in my shoes. If I don't perform as they dream they would if they were, I'm letting them down."

 

[gln1955]

I didn't watch the video. It screams cringe clickbait to me, and maybe that's unfairly judging but I got better things to watch on YouTube.

Regarding tipping the band though, one of the most inventive and unobnoxious ways I've seen is used at a fairly nice restaurant venue I used to play at once a month or so. There is an envelope on each table, (or more for multiple place settings) clearly marked as tipping for the band. We did great with that strategy. I never asked, but I assume the hostess mentioned it.

Probably won't work everywhere.

Inventive -yes

Unobnoxious - No, especially if the waitstaff pushes it.

 

[wmdj5]

100% spot on!

I especially appreciate the "showing off" point.
Why is it that every piano player I have played with lately expects EVERY part of EVERY song to have piano in it?!
Do they teach them in piano school to play minor chords over major keys to make themselves sound "artistic?"
"Ooooohh, look at me! This minor chord sounds jazzy!"
NO! It sounds like you screwed up!

 

[GretschWretch]

They hate our armadillos.

Isn't hating armadillos a peccadillo?

 

[mambo4]

Audience participation for the win! Bands exclaiming "Clap your hands!" or "let's see you make some noise!" is fun and I love it! Yeah, sometimes it might feel try-hard, but I gotta respect them trying hard to get the crowd going. Even if it goes completely wrong, at least it's never boring.

From the audience I've definitely witnessed "Clap your hands!", or front person just clapping overhead, fall flat. I always felt kind of embarrassed for the band.

From onstage I'm most likely to think F- it, just play the gig and have fun regardless of the crowd reception - but I aint the front man, eiethr.

I wonder if any serious study has been done on how to read a crowd?

 

[Nashrakh]

Audience participation, engaging the audience, leading a clap-along, shout-along in a song... in my experience audiences LOVE that! Then it becomes less "my" experience and more "our" experience.

So if this nobody's saying audiences hate audience participation, he's probably just salty because he sucks at hyping up crowds.

Clickbait bull-poopie I say!

I've had people go way overboard with the whole 'participation' angle though. Like going around the audience, shoving microphones in their faces even if it was obvious they don't want that. It was baffling.

 

[Hot Rats]

We had a drummer come into our blues trio for a year or so and he wanted me to grab the tip jar while he would be doing a "drum interlude" and go out into the audience and prompt them to put tips in the jar. I laughed out loud on that one. It never happened.

 

[HolmeBass]

A few good points here, I think.

I definitely hate the whole "get loud and clap your hands" crap. Just play your music and leave me alone.

The "too loud one" is all too common, of course.

The point he makes about audience participation is don’t try to invoke it at the wrong time. I have personally always found it cringe, to a lessor or greater degree depending on circumstances.

I have also been in a small audience where the artist really pushed it and eventually it actually worked.

So? I won’t do it. But I won’t stop a bandmate from doing it if that’s their thing.

 

[dune]

I've had people go way overboard with the whole 'participation' angle though. Like going around the audience, shoving microphones in their faces even if it was obvious they don't want that. It was baffling.

The longest 10 months of my life were spent as the frontman of someone else's band, and the insane BL was always wanting me to do exactly this kind of thing. He thought that crowd participation was the be all and end all. Did I mention how long those 10 months were? What I took from it more than anything was "Never front a band if someone else is calling the shots." He couldn't have read a room if his life had depended on it. Seriously, it felt like 10 years.

 

[Swerve]

100% spot on!

I especially appreciate the "showing off" point.
Why is it that every piano player I have played with lately expects EVERY part of EVERY song to have piano in it?!
Do they teach them in piano school to play minor chords over major keys to make themselves sound "artistic?"
"Ooooohh, look at me! This minor chord sounds jazzy!"
NO! It sounds like you screwed up!

My band had a fiddle player for a few years, and the guy was brilliant and could absolutely shred, BUT he insisted on playing constantly on every song. I did try to get him to “pick his spots” and the song would be better served for it, but that fell on deaf ears.

 

[WG Plum]

And once again I am reminded why I so so so so soooo don't miss being in a band.