I think this is a valid point. If we're playing for distracted or disinterested audiences it would better, both for the band and the audience, for the band to AT LEAST play songs that they love instead of just regurgitating the old overplayed standards all night long.
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What's wrong with 2023 audiences?
- Thread starter Lance Bunyon
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An area where busy middle-class folks go out to dance and have a good time.
Covers (the right ones) totally work.
Covers (the right ones) totally work.
Just for the record, I took the "disdain for cover bands" as being among musicians, and IMO we see plenty of that on this forum and elsewhere. There seems to be little desire to mix up originals with covers, which severely limits the sorts of gigs an original band can handle, but they exist in different universes. I've been in both, and I've been in bands that morphed from mostly originals to a mix of originals and covers in order to play in more venues.
I get that there's a reverence for creativity and that the challenge of playing originals is exciting and alluring, particularly when one is younger. The difficulties involved tend to drive people eventually to other things, or out entirely, unless they are lucky enough to find some success and not get ripped off or backstabbed by the promoters and other "friends" in the business. For the record, I still get backstabbed, even in cover bands, by people who think they are more important than they are.
Originals are a difficult road, and not everyone wants to stay on that road once they have the big picture. So I have a lot of respect for both sides, and not much respect for people who display this sort of disdain, since it shows me they don't know much about what they've gotten into, or else they were lucky (or wealthy) and able to weather the storm and not get beaten up too much like the rest of us did.
Slowing down, only 9 new pages since Thursday? C'mon get up off the couch and start posting again!
I'm still working on another rididulous anecdote to post. Maybe the one about the outdoor wedding at a country club where as soon as we started playing everyone went into the clubhouse to drink and we played to nobody?
I'm still working on another rididulous anecdote to post. Maybe the one about the outdoor wedding at a country club where as soon as we started playing everyone went into the clubhouse to drink and we played to nobody?
The point to me is that there's a reason audiences are distracted, and the band can (usually) change that if they want to.
If the band is disinterested or expecting something from the crowd from the moment of downbeat, they're going to convey that disinterest or disappointment and the audience will mirror that right back.
When I am about to start a gig, I take stock of who's there, I walk up to anyone I might know and chat them up a little and thank them for coming out, and I remind myself that I am there to have fun, even if there are only three people there. Those three people made an effort to be there and I am there for them.
An empty room is an opportunity to rehearse with all our stage gear, and the band can have fun with that.
If you're up there worrying about whether or not you're going to be asked back, or how many people are there, or whether they're paying enough attention, it doesn't really matter how much fun you're pretending to have - your disappointment and anxiety shows. I know this because over the years I have been that person who worries, and I have worked with that person who worries, and I've seen the difference between the nights when the worrier was happy and the nights he was not. Nowadays my only goal is to have fun up there and I make sure my bandmates know that, too. I don't want them fixating on their mistakes or imperfect stage sound and dragging stuff down. Brush it off, nobody cares. We're there to enjoy the moment.
I'm editing to add that, at a wallpaper gig, you're not really expected to engage the audience and distract them from other things going on. So that would be a somewhat different sort of gig, and an opportunity to have fun in different ways.
My 3 bands don’t typically run into these issues. My experience is that live music and engaged audiences are alive and well in 2023.
I think different musical environments or 'scenes' at different places and different countries are different.
Where I live these days, 'copy bands' or 'jukebox bands' really do not get much love or respect. But it isn't a class issue. It's more that bands that perform other peoples music in ways that are substantially similar to the well-known version are viewed as like learner's permits. Very useful for developing musical skills when you're young and learning. Fine for the under-25s who don't have perspective yet.
But a lot of people play their own version of well-known songs. Admittedly, the dividing line between doing a cover as a copy or as your own version may be hard to define. But I can give some examples:
I have less-than-zero interest in hearing U2 or any other band play (the vastly overplayed) "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" in a manner like the well-known version. But Sarah Jarosz does a nice version with just her octave-mandolin that gets to the heart, the meat, the emotion of the song:
Or Van Wilks and Malford Milligan doing 'Little Wing':
Or Kat Edmonson:
Durawa does an extended version of 'Shotgun' without a sax that packs the dance floor. Alien Hound Dog does a rockabilly version of "I Saw Her Standing There". Even "Brown Eyed Girl' is lively as a reggae song.
I think there can be considerable creativity involved in taking apart and reconstructing
well-written songs in new and interesting ways.
Where I live these days, 'copy bands' or 'jukebox bands' really do not get much love or respect. But it isn't a class issue. It's more that bands that perform other peoples music in ways that are substantially similar to the well-known version are viewed as like learner's permits. Very useful for developing musical skills when you're young and learning. Fine for the under-25s who don't have perspective yet.
But a lot of people play their own version of well-known songs. Admittedly, the dividing line between doing a cover as a copy or as your own version may be hard to define. But I can give some examples:
I have less-than-zero interest in hearing U2 or any other band play (the vastly overplayed) "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" in a manner like the well-known version. But Sarah Jarosz does a nice version with just her octave-mandolin that gets to the heart, the meat, the emotion of the song:
Or Van Wilks and Malford Milligan doing 'Little Wing':
Or Kat Edmonson:
Durawa does an extended version of 'Shotgun' without a sax that packs the dance floor. Alien Hound Dog does a rockabilly version of "I Saw Her Standing There". Even "Brown Eyed Girl' is lively as a reggae song.
I think there can be considerable creativity involved in taking apart and reconstructing
well-written songs in new and interesting ways.
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Yeah, good luck on that one. That's a bit like playing football* and hoping to not get hit.
[EDIT * - American football ]
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Yeah, I started a thread about this a long time ago. In that thread it became clear that the definition of a cover, at least as it was understood by the people I came up with in music several decades ago, has changed. It was argued by at least one person that it always meant "a song someone else did first," but in our real-world usage back in the day, a "cover band" was a band of copyists who functioned as a live music jukebox, and the rest of us were just bands playing whatever music we wanted to play however we wanted to. It would include music from others and also could include original songs, all of it interpreted to some degree by the players.
The majority of bands fell into this category and didn't consider themselves "cover bands" because that label was reserved for the corporate, suited-and-coordinated casino and ballroom bands that were commanding a lot of money doing high-level gigs of that sort.
But somewhere between the time I stopped doing music and started again, "cover" came to mean any song that had been recorded first by someone else, and a cover band was any band playing that music whether they were copying someone else or creating their own arrangements.
So yes, I think there's a distinction to be made there, but I don't know what y'all want to call it.
What's wrong with 2023 audiences?
They are not 1960's audiences...
They are not 1960's audiences...
Good question! In our case it's making the set as much performance art as it is music. As much audience engagement as you can without the set becoming too cheesy. It depends on who we are playing for, and where, but we've done things like have people dress up in bear costumes and engage in sword fights with the lead singer, gotten members of the audience on stage for acapella versions of some popular covers, and other things.
One of my favorites was when we created a videogame that was a pong clone controlled by two Theremins (the band are mostly software developers) and would invite the audience to play it (we set it up with a large TV in front of the stage), while sending the Theremin audio into a ton of effects and mixing that in with the band. It was a ton of fun. So, that kind of thing. Making it so the audience has no choice but to marvel at the spectacle.
D
My last band mostly had band work mates and friends at our shows. They crowds incredible. We always had good numbers There was yelling, screaming, and even dancing to, get this, hard rock!? We started in 2002, until 2013. Playing a local VFW in the beginning. Then in small town thst turned out to be awesome. We were all in the military at one time and two of the guys were still active duty. Those crowds were so great. I was shocked when i had to sign autographs??!! If they still do DOD tours i would recommend a tour for any band to go overseas to play to troops. If they still do it. I once played in beer tent in Germany, best gig of my life. Maybe its regional, what kind of crowd you get is crucial.
We need to bring back theremin-pong. It's been a while since we used it as an interaction tool/gimmick.
Sounds fun, but I don't think we, or any band that I know, would do all of that for $100-150 each per night, and I doubt that any venue here would pay much more than that. Do you guys make a lot more for doing that kind of a show?
I have been in that situation a few times. Once, during playoffs which the Patriots were playing, we were forced to wait until the end of the game before they would let us play. Another time, we re told to go home because it was a night game.
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