Building a Set List

I've been gigging for over 30 years and have yet to come up with a sure fire way for every gig. It's not going to happen most likely due to the crowd being different every night. Only your following will allow for any form of consistency and even that won't stay forever.

Ideally, fresh shows everytime guarantees the crowd won't tire of "the same old show" everyweek. That takes tons of work simply due to the fact that you should know close to 200 songs or more so you can change out your shows, especially if you play more than one show at the same place on consecutive nights.

At first, you will want to have enough songs to play a back to back Friday/Saturday and not have to repeat every song both nights. In case the crowd comes back the second night you can still dazzle them with new stuff. (Keep in mind this is the perfect world, too.) :wink:

My best suggestion is to cover everything. Fast, slow, ballads, blues, country and rock and roll. You'll get a feel for the crowd and be able to adjust accordingly. We play rock and roll and mostly rock and roll bars but the crowd will always be blown away by pulling out a classic country number. Of course that may be demigraphically inconsistent.

For a night, again depending on the crowd, we may start light and easy with low volume just to get people conditioned for the rest of the night. That would also be true with a small crowd to start with as sound will bounce around a lot more and could push people right out the door if it's too loud and drastic to begin with.

On the other hand, if you have a full house, pound out your hard, fast best stuff right off the bat. If you see a lot of couples in the crowd, they would prefer slow songs to dance to after 4 or 5 fast numbers. Also, scope the crowd for single guys. If there are a lot, they like slow songs so they can approach a lady and feel more comfortable dancing to slow songs. (At least thats been my experience.) You'll also know a couple of slow tunes might due the trick because people will leave the dance floor due to exhaustion from dancing to all upbeat tunes. (you hope). You could always ask them what they want to hear if you are not sure what to play next. It's also great for requests.

Another angle....most bands have the good stuff and the fillers. If you have a good crowd play the good stuff first to grab and keep their attention. As the night wanes on and the mood lightens and attitudes soften, anything will go over.

So in summary, I have no idea what I mean..... :shock: But seriously, be true to yourself, play what you want, what you like and when you want to. The crowd for the most part won't care.

We always have our sets defined before we go play and normally follow it pretty well. It just depends on how the crowd is responding.

Good luck and be sure to post gig reports on how it all goes.

Hoop,

I'm not in a band and never have been, but I always dreamed of being a talent agent and manager, and I used to work sound and lights for various theatrical productions. My point is that when I'm in an audience, I pay attention to and have a critical eye toward production details and performer-crowd dynamics.

One of my pet peeves in plays, recitals, concerts, etc, is unnecessary delays between numbers. The crowd energy and enthusiasm can take a nosedive when the gaps are too long. I'm a mean backstage "pusher". :evil:
bish wrote: We always have our sets defined before we go play and normally follow it pretty well.

I think that having defined setlists ahead of time is a great way to help avoid those deflating delays. Of course, you can always deviate from the setlist to suit the crowd and response, but having a general plan of attack and everyone knowing it is the most professional. A designated bandmember should be the arbiter of any deviations from that setlist, so there is not any protracted discussion onstage as to what is coming next.

I realize that the band needs a few moments to catch its breath and recoup between numbers, but I really like to see the set tight. Get the audience rocking and keep that music coming. That's my 2 cents worth. :D

Margaret

To add a bit to the good advice here, and especially to what Maragaret says, sometimes it's good to prepare a set based on equipment changes or set-ups. You may not even be to this state yet, but for instance, if your guitar player plays two different guitars, chances are when he puts on the second one, there's all sorts of fiddling and doublechecking the tone settings, etc., so don't switch guitars every song. Likewise if you do some acoustic numbers, group them together so there's not a lot of dead time between songs. Keep the gear changes to a minimum, keep any delays to a minimum and that will do more to keep the set energy flowing than you can imagine.

Peace

To quote Brian May - and probably plenty of others - "Blind and deafen them in the first twenty minutes"

The shape of a performance is important. After you've blinded and deafened them bring in your slower and quieter numbers. Then build up to a climax at the end. Save something good for an encore, but not your best song. That should be in the main performance.

Best,

A :-)

Depending on when you go on, there may be fewer people present in the beginning of the evening, and it builds up later, so sometimes it's good to put some of your weaker songs in the first set - even tell the crowd that it's a work in progress. Also, if the crowd turns over, you can re-use the best songs from your early sets in the last set.

It's good to keep to the set list, but if you've got 100 dancers during the rockers, and 10 during the ballads, perhaps you might reduce the number of ballads later in the evening. Conversely, this may be when everyone takes a break and buys more beer, which makes the bar owner happy. But definitely avoid ad-libbing the song choices, unless you're group is very good at this - it's fun when it works (esp. when David is the bandleader), but you can crash and burn when it doesn't.

Last, medleys can be fun when they're done right. Sweet Home Alabama into Werewolves of London can work. Watchtower into Don't Fear the Reaper doesn't (I know - we did it once). Summertime into Moondance requires pretty good skill, as there is a tempo change.

Our set list last night turned out like this... seemed to work well.. crowd got into then got drunk and got lazy but started to sing along... and we ended with some Rage Aginst the Machine everyone gotup again so was a good night. but im still looking for a magic formula
1. Blister in the Sun
2. Run Around
3. Creep
4. Foxy Lady
5. Peaches
6. By the Way
7. Mary Jane
8. Cherub Rock
9. Beautiful D
10. Killing in the Name
11. Dani Cali
12. Tomorrow
13. Billie Jean
14. Warning
15. Cocaine
16.
17. Bulls on Parade
18. Man in the Box
19. Use Me
20. Hotel Cali
21. Hard to Handle
22. Aeroplane
23. Folsom Prison Blues
24. Nice To Know You
25. Possum kingdom
26. Sitting at a Bar
27. Friend of the Devil
28. Knocking on Heavens Door
29. Killing in the Name Of