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When did cover gigs balloon to 3 hours?

#81
I play jazz and jam bands. club gigs are always no more than 3 - 45 minute sets for the jam bands, 2 - 45 minute sets for the jazz bands. concerts are always 1 - 90 minute set. for the occasional wedding it's 1 cocktail jazz set and 3 rock sets. but that's for serious $$.

I quit playing 4 hour club gigs back in the 80's.
 
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#82
Trevorus said:
So, I've been doing the church gig stuff for years, so I've been out of the loop. When did the cover band set expand to 3 hours? It used to be an hour and have two or three bands. I'm a glutton for punishment, apparently, because I've got two different bands with two different three hour sets, playing lead guitar on one and bass on the other.

The bass gig they eventually want me playing upright on a few of the songs, and thankfully the keyboardist owns one he'll let me borrow. But I've only screwed around on one that happened to be around, no real performance experience there.

I've got my work cut out for me. Oh, yeah, full time job, kids, and all the accoutrements that come along with that, too.
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I’ve only noticed them get shorter since Covid. For as long as I can remember playing, the typical gig was 10pm to 2am. Now they’re earlier and shorter.
 
#83
Gervais Cote said:
Is it just me………….
But it seems most of the people really like music but they are giving a hard time to musicians in terms of logistics and $ wanting them to do everything and "almost" don’t get paid ?
(Just thinking out load)……..
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People like music, but they also want to hear what they want to hear and plenty of bands don’t do that, and if they do they want money and might not even be that good. Thus the rise of the DJ and wifi jukebox thing.
 
#85
Trevorus said:
So, I've been doing the church gig stuff for years, so I've been out of the loop. When did the cover band set expand to 3 hours? It used to be an hour and have two or three bands. I'm a glutton for punishment, apparently, because I've got two different bands with two different three hour sets, playing lead guitar on one and bass on the other.

The bass gig they eventually want me playing upright on a few of the songs, and thankfully the keyboardist owns one he'll let me borrow. But I've only screwed around on one that happened to be around, no real performance experience there.

I've got my work cut out for me. Oh, yeah, full time job, kids, and all the accoutrements that come along with that, too.
Click to expand...

Back in the 70’s and 80’s gigs were 4 45 minute sets. Lately they’ve been two two hour sets with a 15-20 minute break in between.
 
#87
The last time I was playing steady in a cover band the bandleader always put in the contract two 90 minute sets with one 30 minute break. Over the many years I was with them I could probably count on one hand the number of times we were requested by a venue/event to do anything different than that, and unless it was a festival or some kind of all-day type event the shows were always just one band per night.
 
#89
Makoa Johnson said:
The last time I was playing steady in a cover band the bandleader always put in the contract two 90 minute sets with one 30 minute break. Over the many years I was with them I could probably count on one hand the number of times we were requested by a venue/event to do anything different than that, and unless it was a festival or some kind of all-day type event the shows were always just one band per night.
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I actually think this is better than three ~50 minute sets with two breaks. There’s usually a huge exodus after the second of three sets, when you play two people seem more likely to stick.

Personally I don’t really notice the difference between playing 50 minutes and 90. As long as I’m out I’d rather be playing than not playing.
 
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#91
been gigging since the late 60's. Back then and into the 70's, the most common stuff for me was 5 or 6 night run club dates that were always 3hrs/3 sets on weekdays and 3.5 or 4hrs on weekends. Even my originals run of the last 15 years or so has been a pretty standard 3hr gigs with either 3 45min sets or 2 75min sets.

Now, weddings and other events could be anything the client or event planner wanted.
 
#94
Same here - all of our gigs are either 3 hours (2 sets with one break) or 4 hours (3 sets with two breaks). That's all I can remember playing since I started gigging in college in the mid '90s.

I'll occasionally see a show with multiple bands playing a 45-60 minute set, but those are usually original bands, not cover bands.
 
#95
Was very happy when I re-entered the "scene" about 6 years ago that not only were the gigs earlier, but 3 hours instead of 4. Most of my shows for 2 different bands are 2 sets over a 3 hour period, and usually ended by midnight.
 
#96
When I started playing clubs in the PNW in 1970 we played at least three hours a night six nights a week. Generally we would start at 9PM and play until 2AM. On occasional gigs in Nevada we played six nights a week but had to play from 9PM to 6AM on Friday and Saturday. When I moved to southern California things were a bit easier. It was only five nights a week beginning at 9PM and ending about 1AM. This lasted until about 1992 when clubs started going to one nighters.
 

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