Stagecraft 101

[Gary Blanchard]

It is always a challenge to bring entertainment as well as music, especially depending on the venue and type of music. When I play at Chilifest the audience doesn't seem to focus much on the musicians; we are more like background music. When I play coffeehouse situations, I have a few rules for myself that apply to my style of music:

1) Don't sit down to play. It just seems as though you are there passing time. Since most coffeehouses do not have stages I need to stand to stand out. This past Saturday the Macy's store in the mall had live entertainment for a special cancer fund-raiser weekend. The two people who were performing while we were there just sat in chairs; it was rather underwhelming.

2) Involve the audience. I like to give a bit of information about the inspiration for a song, or an interesting story related to the song. I will frequently, in small places, have a conversation with the audience. When possible, I get the audience to sing along or clap along. This works well for folk-style music.

3) I try hard not to get over-technical, which is easy for me as I am not that technical anyway. I don't go deep into chord structure and stuff like that. It might fascinate fellow musicians but it bores the fuck out of the average listener,\.

4) Have fun. When the audience sees that I am having fun doing what I am doing it becomes easier for them to have fun. It is contagious.

5) Don't preach. Many of my songs have a message that is (hopefully) subtle. If I get on a soapbox before and after the song I am liable to push people away rather than get them to think. Hopefully enough of the lyrics will settle in to get the person to think. While I feel the message is important my job is to entertain, so I focus on that.

While I was out shopping with Carol I found a neat shirt that is light blue with a white floral pattern; it has a 60's Pete-Seeger feel without being highly retro. I plan to wear it for my next gig in September.

 

[jbj]

A couple thoughts on this in light of a conversation I had with the keyboard player in the country band this weekend.

We are playing a annual late summer festival in a big park by my house in three weeks. We requested to play either before or after a band that has several close friends called 'The Red Hot Bluz Catz' since they play the festival every year as well. The lady doing the entertainment said she had not asked them to come back this year. She commented that they were a good band (they are - great guitar player and singers) but that they had no stage presence and they looked like they wandered up on stage from the audience. From her perspective the bands needed a stage 'presence' and needed to look at least a little bit of the part. Interesting to keep in mind....

I can dig that.

I've watched 2 cover bands in the past few weeks.

One sounded great, had great harmonies, a good song list and they all could play great. They also had no stage presence.

The other band, a freinds one at that, is a lot rougher around the edges playing and sound wise but they all have a blast onstage and the front man is absolutely great both vocally and charismatically.

Guess which band was playing to an almost empty bar and which one had the bar packed.

 

[Mark Wein]

We set out a sheet for our email list - that was about it. And plugged our website. This year I don't care since I'm on my way out. I just need to get the new band in there next year!

The trick is to have a smaller and more affordable band for one thing. A huge band just looks too expensive for most people. And you can bring up that you're available for private parties without making it sound like you're desperate to be hired. Also having a flyer out next to your email list and plugging a Facebook page helps, too!