Old Material, New Material, Good Material

[Standard8]

My band has been around for about a year, we've got about an hour and a half of material. Of course, there are songs I describe as "passable" and songs that just plain rock. There's songs that the whole band loves to play, and other songs that half the band hates/other half loves.

 

Right now, we are a one-set band, with the occassional 1h 15m set.

 

For the standard 45 minute set, do yall have opinions on where you draw the line between playing only the best of the best songs each show, versus trying to keep the set changed up a bit from show to show, even if the songs aren't quite as good (as in all members love the song).

 

Or another angle, some of the songs we don't like have the best crowd response, and vice-versa, some we love get the poorest response.

 

On the one hand, about half our crowd are regulars and we don't want to lose them because they are tired of hearing the same songs over and over, but we don't want to lose the opportunity to add new members to the regular crowd by playing not-as-good songs.

 

Is there a balance?

[strathound]

Search for Covers vs. Originals in this and other forums and read to your hearts content. I think a lot of your question is covered ad nauseum around here in other posts. It boils down to playing what you love to play versus playing what the audience loves. There are tradeoffs no matter which way you go. But yeah, that's covered pretty well. In the end it boils down to why you play music in the first place. And we can't answer that for you.