Members jeff42 Posted May 17, 2010 Members Share Posted May 17, 2010 pop/dance/party bands, do you change your set for bike nights? We have been asked to do a popular bike night this summer and I want to dig out all our classic rock & modern rock tunes for that night. Some disagree. We have played bike nights in the past when our set list was not 100% pop/dance/party music but now, I don't feel like our current set, which is heavy on modern pop, disco and Big 80s "fits." What do you think? Do you change to fit the crowd or do you toss Disco inferno and The Safety Dance at the bikers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bnelly428 Posted May 17, 2010 Members Share Posted May 17, 2010 i'd say if you have to luxury of playing songs geared towards the audience than that is what you do. Because you can play the best version of "disco inferno" that the biker crowd has ever heard, but you become that "band that plays disco inferno" to everyone there and that they know. We're just starting to be able to switch songs out of the setlist on a nightly basis with songs we think will go over better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rhat Posted May 17, 2010 Members Share Posted May 17, 2010 typical bike nights are the HD crowd. SO basically you are talking demograhpics of 45 to 65 years old. thats the basic breakdown of who goes to these things. Older classic and souther rock, modern and older country and blues is where you want most of the set list to target. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wades_keys Posted May 17, 2010 Members Share Posted May 17, 2010 What do you think? Do you change to fit the crowd or do you toss Disco inferno and The Safety Dance at the bikers? Change the setlist to fit the crowd, always. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TrickyBoy Posted May 17, 2010 Members Share Posted May 17, 2010 Weird thing I'm noticing. I went to go see a classic southern rock band on Saturday night. Place was packed and the crowd was definitely older, some 20's, but mostly mid 30's to mid 40's. Guess what the DJ played during the breaks. New Hip Hop tunes. And the crowd all bumped and grinded until the next set started. With that in mind, would I add some older classic stuff? Definitely if I had it in the bag and could dust it off relatively painlessly. I'm sure "magic carpet ride", "sweet home alabama", "pride &joy", etc. will go over great. But I'll bet Pokerface still gets biker chicks dancing, which still makes biker dudes happy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rhat Posted May 17, 2010 Members Share Posted May 17, 2010 Weird thing I'm noticing. I went to go see a classic southern rock band on Saturday night. Place was packed and the crowd was definitely older, some 20's, but mostly mid 30's to mid 40's. Guess what the DJ played during the breaks. New Hip Hop tunes. And the crowd all bumped and grinded until the next set started.With that in mind, would I add some older classic stuff? Definitely if I had it in the bag and could dust it off relatively painlessly. I'm sure "magic carpet ride", "sweet home alabama", "pride &joy", etc. will go over great.But I'll bet Pokerface still gets biker chicks dancing, which still makes biker dudes happy. You may not be able to judge a bike night crowd from what you saw. Bike nights are pretty well always mid week deals. typically a 7 to 10 gig. The bikes in the lot will be 10 HDs to one sportbike. The youngest in the crowd tend to be in their 40s ,,, the oldest are in their 60s and older if they still can get on a scoot and ride. I was very active in the bike night scene for a good number of years. It was not unusual for us to hit seveal of these deals a week in the summer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wades_keys Posted May 17, 2010 Members Share Posted May 17, 2010 But I'll bet Pokerface still gets biker chicks dancing, which still makes biker dudes happy. I highly doubt that. There's no dancing at bike nights, at least not around here. These arent' the types of people to get up and dance. But they will get up and leave if you start busting out Lady Gaga or any other Pop cheese. We actually had a couple of freaky looking chicks dancing at our last bike night gig - but that's an anomaly. We'll be playing another bike night this coming week - don't expect any dancers there either. At bike nights, you're there to play background music for the bike showoff: so play the same type of music that they would listen to at work or on the bike. Lady Gaga and disco ain't that type of music. But feel free to try it out - you WON'T get asked back, at least not around here. What works for us is blues and old heavy rock: we get more compliments on the SRV, Hendrix and Cream stuff at bike nights than we do when we play that at other gigs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members musicmanmu Posted May 17, 2010 Members Share Posted May 17, 2010 It's all a crap shoot, really. You may play "Poker Face" and get empty (or full!) bottles of Bud slung your way. Or, they may dig it. Only way to find out is to try it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wades_keys Posted May 17, 2010 Members Share Posted May 17, 2010 It's all a crap shoot, really. You may play "Poker Face" and get empty (or full!) bottles of Bud slung your way. Or, they may dig it. Only way to find out is to try it. Hey, go for it. Can I watch? What I've noticed about the bike night gigs we play: it's just as important if not more so to play music that the event organizer likes as it is to try and figure out what the biker's want. If the organizer likes your stuff, he'll treat you right and he'll ask your band back. If he doesn't, then count on that being the last gig you play there for a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mstreck Posted May 17, 2010 Members Share Posted May 17, 2010 Don't know about "biker night", but we played a biker bar as a favor to a promoter friend. We didn't change a thing. We got stares for the first song. When we played "We Got the Beat" (maybe our 3rd song?) the dance floor was packed and stayed that way. To top it off, the bar patrons were calling their friends to come see us. Maybe they'd be glad to hear the other stuff??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members modulusman Posted May 17, 2010 Members Share Posted May 17, 2010 Bike night gigs sound really boring to me. Nobody dancing or paying attention to the band. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members newmaxnew Posted May 17, 2010 Members Share Posted May 17, 2010 I don't think they do Bike Nights around here. However I do know that Bikers around here will dance, I'm not talking about the urban professional bikers but the guys with patches that are affiliated with a real club. Things are just so diffrerent in other parts of the country. Experience on one coast doesn't translate well to the other coast. Max Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members sickman Posted May 17, 2010 Members Share Posted May 17, 2010 One gig we played was the last stop on a motorcycle clubs poker/charity ride. We play the same stuff everywhere, but it is stuff biker types in their 40s-50s would like. Two of the original band members are not in clubs, but do ride. We don't play stuff like "Born to Be Wild", "Sweet Home", or "Turn the Page"... but we do a lot of Allman Brothers/Skynyrd/Marshall Tucker/southern rock/blues type stuff. They had a great time and no one caused any problems. I don't think they would have responded the same way to modern pop, disco, or 80s pop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rhat Posted May 17, 2010 Members Share Posted May 17, 2010 Bike night gigs sound really boring to me. Nobody dancing or paying attention to the band. Thats not really the case, In fact those guys prolly pay more attention to the bands than a dancing crowd. Most of them grew up when live music was king and no one hired DJs. Bike Nights are a way for bars to have a good night in the middle of the week. They have a big grill going making burgers, brats and dogs ,, beer and a big parking lot loaded up with HDs. Typically these people are married and either are riding two bikes or two up. So on a thurday night you get them out for somthing to eat, a few drinks and they hang out with their firend , talk bikes and listen to live music. For a band its a mid week gig. One of the big local country acts do this bike night quite a few times a summer as a duo ,, so its a also a way for them to pump their full band shows. they are the guys who open for the major country acts that go through grand rapids mi. As for boring for the band ... its not really about the band ,, its a bout entertaining the people. These guys like doing these bike nights .. they always sell a few CDs and do land some Pvt and Corp gigs off of these bike night gigs. Its just another gig for them and it produces more gigs ... win win deal. The first time I ever saw these guys was as a duo a few years ago at a bike night. check out their sight .. great country act and really know how to entertain a crowd. So guys i would not sell those bike night gigs short. Its where these guys got their start i am pretty sure. Nice guys and very humble about their success. http://www.thebronkbros.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wades_keys Posted May 17, 2010 Members Share Posted May 17, 2010 The biker's don't make the booking decisions, the guy that's paying us does. They do classic rock/blues at the Kingfish Bike Night and at the RoadHouse: this is how it's advertised on the radio, and it's what the event organizer wants. So that's what he gets from us when we play those events, which we do with some regularity. Got another one coming up in just over a week in fact, and we just played one last week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jeff42 Posted May 17, 2010 Author Members Share Posted May 17, 2010 well if the price is right we are going to do this bike night and crack out a lot of our stuff that hasn't been in our set for awhile. It will be fun to play locomotive breath again! -I am a big tull fan. Most of the classic rock stuff that we "can" play we don't unless asked. We do keep a few rotating through our set but crowd Reaction at places we play has always been better with Disco Inferno and The Safety Dance than White Room and Wayward Son. It's just what we do, but if need be we can do both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rhat Posted May 17, 2010 Members Share Posted May 17, 2010 well if the price is right we are going to do this bike night and crack out a lot of our stuff that hasn't been in our set for awhile. It will be fun to play locomotive breath again! -I am a big tull fan. Most of the classic rock stuff that we "can" play we don't unless asked. We do keep a few rotating through our set but crowd Reaction at places we play has always been better with Disco Inferno and The Safety Dance than White Room and Wayward Son. It's just what we do, but if need be we can do both. A few years ago , tulll was out on the big bike rally deal. They played a big one in michigan and I think did sturgis. Black Oak was playing them too. Bike nights are the little leagues , ,but are a good way for a band to work its way into a weekend slot at a bar that does a midweek bike night. they are also good for duo acts too. Some bike nights draw pretty good sized crowds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jeff42 Posted May 17, 2010 Author Members Share Posted May 17, 2010 A few years ago , tulll was out on the big bike rally deal. They played a big one in michigan and I think did sturgis. Black Oak was playing them too. Bike nights are the little leagues , ,but are a good way for a band to work its way into a weekend slot at a bar that does a midweek bike night. they are also good for duo acts too. Some bike nights draw pretty good sized crowds. This one always draws a large crowd. We played it last year when more of the classic rock & modern rock tunes were a little "fresher" in our heads. + they had mud wrestling too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members modulusman Posted May 17, 2010 Members Share Posted May 17, 2010 About 20 years ago I would play at biker parties. Wet titty contests and all kinds of illegal activity going on. That was fun from what I can remember. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rhat Posted May 17, 2010 Members Share Posted May 17, 2010 This one always draws a large crowd. We played it last year when more of the classic rock & modern rock tunes were a little "fresher" in our heads. + they had mud wrestling too! Yea bike rally's are fun ,, I used to go to one in southern indiana called the boogie. Always top entertainment. A decent bunch of bikers who know how to have a good time and were well behaved. Zero cops. Pretty much anything goes...except violence.... The rally has their own security.. so anyone who caused trouble was real happy to get into the police car at the gate. The security know how to end a fight in a hurry. All the big three patch clubs were there ,, but hey signed a non agression agreement,, so they were cool. Just a big ass party. the last one I went to had johnny lang as the head liner. Kenny wayne shepherd was on the bill at one of them too. Double trouble backed one of them up if i remember, Never remember a whole lot from that rally ,, the boogie does that to you lol. Kenny wayne she Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ski219 Posted May 18, 2010 Members Share Posted May 18, 2010 I'm playing a "bike night" Thursday after next with my originals band. We are playing a set then a harder sort of southern edged originals band is taking the next set. I think they plan to throw in a few Skynnrd tunes to keep the bikers happy. This will be our first gig and it's not one we went looking for, but what the heck - we'll give it a shot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rhat Posted May 18, 2010 Members Share Posted May 18, 2010 A tip for you guys who play bike nights ,,,, do yourself a favor , dont play born to be wild. Bikers really dont want to you prove how much you dont know about what bikers want to hear. Like jeff F says ,, here's your sign. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Hegmatronicon Posted May 18, 2010 Members Share Posted May 18, 2010 We played a bike rally last friday night. But the organiser sa us play a while back and asked us if we were interested in playing the rally - so he knew what he was getting. We play a lot of classic rock stuff (ACDC, The Angels, Doors etc) all the way through to songs like Kryptonite, Blister in the Sun and 7 Nation army.It went great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 3shiftgtr Posted May 18, 2010 Members Share Posted May 18, 2010 There are bikers that are dentists and there are bikers that are hardcore {censored}ING BIKERS that belong to a club and the club is their life. Most are outlaws. Safety Dance is fine for the dentists and lawyers. If you see groups of dudes in colors, you'd better play to the crowd. Poker runs down here are popular and have all kinds of bikers, but not many hardcore. But bike nights at a few bars down here are really just a reason for a club to come out and terrorize a bar. A set of Safety Dance might get the {censored} kicked out of you. Wades said it...adjust your set list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TrickyBoy Posted May 18, 2010 Members Share Posted May 18, 2010 Note to self: Politely decline any invitations to play a "Bike Night" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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