Extending the song

[badhabit]

How many of you in bands that perform, extend the song? We often add extra solos ( we have three that solo ) and even repeat verses. It seems that most live performances of artists tunes do this. They'll "break it down" to give the drummer and bass player some, have the keyboard or guitar player play longer, or even adlib the middle solo sections. Our band does this for multiple reasons:

If a soloist is smoking that night, let them tear it up; it keeps the dancers dancing longer; reduces the amount of tunes we play that night; adds spontaneity to the performance, highlights individual musicianship and so on.

 

It seems to me that sometimes, dancers may not get going til half the song is over. Then to end it "just like the record" cuts the song short for the dancers. It requires all of us in the band to keep a "heads up" approach to look for signals, but we're pretty good about that and catching changes to arrangements.

 

What do many of you do?

[tlbonehead]

depends. If a few people just get out there with 20 seconds to go we'll extend the song in most cases. But nothing sounds more lame than when you can tell that a band is trying to lengthen a song so that they don't have to play as many, IMO.

[modulusman]

On songs that we know people will dance to we sometimes make the song longer. There use to be a local band that had seven members and on every song 5 of them would solo. The funny part was they would each take a solo in the same order on each song. Starting stage left to stage right.

[dk123123dk]

We do the same as the OP, esp with the songs everyone dances too. As long as everyone is having a great time, we keep that going as much as possible.

 

dk

[jeff42]

we actually shorten most of our tunes and place them in a medley with other songs. We used to extend solos and stuff back in the day but now we do the opposite. This means we end up playing way more songs per night than some other bands but thats ok. The medley route works better for us cuz there is little to no "dead air" on stage anymore.

[cooterbrown]

^this^

We do a LOT of segues with our dance tunes...which is about 90% of our setlist.

[BlueStrat]

Yeah, I'd rather just do more songs with no break in between them. I HATE listening to bands stretch songs out song after song after song....

[axeman25]

I also find that a medley works best (for us). In my experience, if you extend the song so players can pull off a killer extended solo, no one in the bar cares. You could play a Dream Theater song note for note and no one would care (except the two drunks in the back), but you pull out a good song for dancing or several good songs mixed into one (no matter how easy they can be to play) that you can pack a dance floor and keep it packed.

 

I know it's stupid. But the worst band in the world could start Brickhouse, Brown Eye'd Girl, ect., and the dance floor will be packed, but if a great band in the same bar with the same crowd played something very technical and difficult to play(or obscure), no one really cares about the talent part of it. Sad.

 

And no, we don't play any of the songs listed above.

[SpaceNorman]

If you're doing covers - the version you grab to learn a song from often dictates whether you need to lengthen or shorten it. We try to keep tunes somewhere around 4 minutes in length. That means that the 2:30 second radio version of a song gets some format modication in order to lengthen it a little. Meanwhile the 9 minute album version of another tune gets cut damn near in half.

 

We have three of us who solo (sax and guitar cover the bulk of 'em - I cover a few on keys as well). We seldom have a "solo-fest" in a single song. We also limit most solos in length - and have maybe one or two slow tunes that include the classic guitar wankfest. We much prefer solos to be short, sweet and to the point - and arrange our tunes accordingly.

 

We don't do many medleys in the classic sense (i.e., playing pieces of tunes). Most of our tunes however are arranged in blocks of twos and threes - with a defined segue between each song in the block. We've found it works great as a tool to reduce dead space between songs - and makes putting together a set list alot easier. It's seems easier to pick 5-6 "blocks" than to 12-14 songs.

[captain kazoo]

it always bugged me when i was out of ideas but the band was still going and i'm stuck up there soloing, so i start whacking away at the fretboard like a madman, doing shtick, and everyone's grooving and i'm thinking "damn man, i ran out of ideas two verses ago. let's wrap this {censored} up. for the love of god."

[cooterbrown]

 

it always bugged me when i was out of ideas but the band was still going and i'm stuck up there soloing, so i start whacking away at the fretboard like a madman, doing shtick, and everyone's grooving and i'm thinking "damn man, i ran out of ideas two verses ago. let's wrap this {censored} up. for the love of god."

 

 

Yup...always hated the "interminable jam."

Unless it's an actual component of the song, I don't care for gratuitous soloing.

 

But if it's in a true jam-format with musicians who can actually take things into different tangents and not run out of ideas, I'm okay with that, as long as that's the plan from the start.

My friend Danny, and I, once took "Hey Pocky Way" and turned it, first into what the song might sound like if Steely Dan at their most obtuse (lots of mu major chords and reharmonized bass) took a turn, then later it morphed into something that sounded like hip Egyptian music, and the crowd (lots of jazzers) was actually listening and digging what we were playing.

[JBJ]

I was once doing a gig for our singers uncle's birthday for a freebie.

 

We were an originals band but had come up with a night of covers for the party. The drummer forgot how we'd worked out the ending of brown eyed girl (since the original fades out) and we ended up playing it for close to 10 minutes.

 

The crowd lapped it up and I'm confident we could have repeated the chorus and middle 8 for another 5 minutes before they go bored.

[Scott Powell]

we tend to extend ballads more than other tunes. when the dance floor is packed an extra verse and chorus goes over well

[TrickyBoy]

With lyrics / sing alongs, etc. yes to extending the song. Extra solos, not so much.

[SwampMusic]

We will extend songs by extra solos, verses or whatever seems to fit the mood of the dancers. This generally occurs later in the evening on the the slow dance pieces. I can't see doing it just to limit the number of pieces. The most this will do is cut maybe 3-4 songs. If we are playing the same venue on consecutive nights, it just lets us mix it up a bit more on the second night.

[Scott Powell]

 

Extra solos, not so much.

 

 

in our area, extra solo's empty the dance floor:facepalm:

 

we just say NO to wanking extra long solo's

[IKH]

We use specific long versions of some songs like the live Freak n Roll version of Hard To Handle. We jam out on Harry Nilson's Jump into the Fire,morphing into Sly's Dance to the Music a short bit after the drum solo and jam a couple verses to end. (always seems to go over very well) Rockin in the Free World What can I say at the end of the night they will boogie till they puke.

We do tie songs together with our own segue's ;

 

Paralell Universe..Chili peppers into

Trampled under foot Zep into

Take Me Out Franz Ferdinand into

Paralyzer Finger Eleven into

Jailbreak Thin Lizzie

 

This gets to be a pretty long run. Some leave the floor, but seems that others come up at different times.

 

We do a lot of 2 song runs, and quite often will add a verse of a similar song (same basic melody) in the middle somewhere.

[wades_keys]

Usually just an extended outro solo, rarely if ever a verse repeat.

[Scafeets]

On a lot of songs that originally ran 2:30 or 3:15, we'll repeat the first verse or add a solo, or both. Sometimes, our lead singer (and sax player) will check out the audience. If they're dancing and/or responding, he might "call an audible" (little hand-single, actually) and we know it's once more around the block with him singing an extra verse or playing a sax solo.

It's not a question of having enough songs -- we go into every set with 15 on the list, and sometimes have to cut one -- it just a matter of engagement and continuity.

[mr3lions]

Once played a gig at a strip bar with two dancers in front of the band. The last thing the manager said was "Don't stop a song if guys are giving money to the dancers" We announced that our last song in the set was Sanctuary by The Cult. As I'm doing the end part (screaming "Sanctuary Yeahhhh!" over and over I look at the manager who is giving me the "keep going" sign. Well, that song must have doubled in length and I could hardly speak from all the yelling. Funny thing is the dancers sent us over a round of drinks when we finished for helping them earn the extra tips.

I've NEVER been tipped by a stripper before and I doubt it will ever happen again.

[jeff42]

usually when the crowd wants to sing along with us we break the song down kinda impromtu and let them sing a few choruses with us. that does extend the song a bit. We also will use this time to toss out some free Tshirts to the louder hotter girls.

[tim_7string]

When my new band started out, we had to extend a few songs simply to eat up time. I also had the lead guitarist/bassist play a quick guitar solo before he started a song (he played bass for most of the night) and the drummer started out the fourth set with a three minute solo.

 

Being a fan of the 3 minute song, it killed me to do that, but now that we know more tunes, we only do it on a few songs and it's usually only when the crowd is dancing and it's obvious they want to keep it going.

[babalugats85]

We redo a verse or two on any song shorter than 3 minutes. We do not add solos because frankly, no one but the band really wants to hear us jam.

 

We do have 2 medleys where we segue from one song to another without stopping and since the songs individually are pretty strong, they tend to go over well as a medley.