Backstage With the Band

[jeff42]

here ya go. my first topic on the new board. Just something cool that happened to us over the weekend...

For awhile now we have been playing a medley that consists of:

She's So Mean- Matchbox 20
We Are Young- Fun
Somebody I Used To Know- Gotye

It has been working so-so and we usually placed it either late in the 1st set (within the first hour of our show) or early in our 2nd set. Honestly it was on its way out because it never lit up the room. We figured that maybe we just didn't cover these songs well enough with just 3 people.

Last Friday we skipped it in the first set and pulled it out 1st thing in the 3rd set. The crowd went absolutely crazy for it. Surprised the hell out of us and reminded me of the fact that placement does count. 

[mstreck]

Yes, it does. We always got a good reaction to You Oughta Know and Zombie towards the end of the 2nd set. We ended up needing to skip them for some reason (I think our other guitarist's amp was acting up), so we ended up playing it in the third set to an awesome reaction. It was a happy accident.

[guido61]

Set placement DOES matter, but also keep in mind that there are certain spots in the night where you could fart into the mic for 3 minutes and get a huge response.

Just make sure you're not confusing "people really like this song a lot more than I thought they did" for "people are really drunk and revved up at this point in the night and will cheer for anything."

[jimiv]

The visual of farting into a mic for 3 minutes put me on the floor laughing.  I'm still chuckling.  Thank you for the entertainment this morning..

[mstreck]

---

guido61 wrote:

Set placement DOES matter, but also keep in mind that there are certain spots in the night where you could fart into the mic for 3 minutes and get a huge response.

Just make sure you're not confusing "people really like this song a lot more than I thought they did" for "people are really drunk and revved up at this point in the night and will cheer for anything."

---

Well, not *anything*. We have some stinkers that still wouldn't fly during the third set and should just go away permenantly.

But if a song gets a good response earlier in the night, I say don't be afraid to mix things up a bit for your next show!

[jeff42]

Part of why we kept this medley around is because of the feedback on this forum.

Others in this forum have said that "We are Young" is a great big awesome sing-a-long for them... And now it is for us. It just had to be placed better.

Another thing that surprised me was how well the last song in this little medley went over. The last song is a kicked up cover of Somebody I used to know. It usually falls kinda flat but this time we had all the heartbroken drunk girls screaming the chorus at the top of their lungs.

I still think Gotye is a creep... Heehee

[StageMasters]

I agree with Guido about the fact that in bars and clubs circuit, people will get drunk and after a while, whatever you do is awesome for them. But I also know that the better the band is the more people will tend to drink due to the happy atmosphere created. I have seen places with lame bands and people were looking like worms and bored to death. As much as the band in fact. The mood is set by the band and the response follows the energy of the band. it will result in this circuit into heavy drinking

StageMasters

[jeff42]

---

StageMasters wrote:

I agree with Guido about the fact that in bars and clubs circuit, people will get drunk and after a while, whatever you do is awesome for them.

---

Well to a point, I think you can still totally turn off a drunken happy crowd by playing a cover song that they have no interest in. I've been there before. LOL

But later in the night makes awesome tunes even awesome-er!

Our amazement came from what we thought were 3 filler tunes that are now safe from dropping all because we found a good place for them in our show.

[vort]

To add to this, we found ourselves doing what we call "audibles" where we'll make a snap change to the setlist based on what the crowd is doing.  There are some songs we decided not to put into the sets anymore.  These songs are our typical movers and shakers (Love Shack, Busta Move, Shout, etc). We save them as subs to pull out when the crowd is really moving.

[GtrGeorge!]

Id rather hear that 3minute song that the guy makes with his BUTT than omebody that I used to know". ..I mean, 3 minutes straight??? That's incredible. GtrGeorge ok..I will be good now.

[jeff42]

Our little piece of it clocks in at around 2:30. LOL