Stagecraft 101

Prages said:
Except that if I did everything the way she wanted me to:

1: I'd never gig past 10 PM.
2: I'd never gig more than 3 miles from my house.
3: I'd take a single guitar, a small modelling devise, and a very small powered speaker....at most...to every gig.
4: I'd never play anything by ZZ Top.
5: Soundcheck can never last more than 20 seconds. If Chuck has to kick the bass drum more than twice, he's just doing it to get on his nerves.

I mean, she can be pretty unreasonable. :embarrassed:
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Actually that's not true, You'd never gig past 9 PM. :grin:
 
Prages said:
Except that if I did everything the way she wanted me to:

1: I'd never gig past 10 PM.
2: I'd never gig more than 3 miles from my house.
3: I'd take a single guitar, a small modelling devise, and a very small powered speaker....at most...to every gig.
4: I'd never play anything by ZZ Top.
5: Soundcheck can never last more than 20 seconds. If Chuck has to kick the bass drum more than twice, he's just doing it to get on his nerves.

I mean, she can be pretty unreasonable. :embarrassed:
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:):):):):)

At least she goes to your gigs, these days I'd have to be playing at the Chicago Theater in order to get my wife out. I can't say as I blame her though, the last gig I played I was loading the two guitars I take, an amp, a pedalboard and my bag with all my cables and my neighbor said "is Heather going to your show?" I said "no, at this point she's probably seen me play about a hundred times." My wife was also in the yard and she responded "more like 300 times."
 
Prages said:
Except that if I did everything the way she wanted me to:

1: I'd never gig past 10 PM.
2: I'd never gig more than 3 miles from my house.
3: I'd take a single guitar, a small modelling devise, and a very small powered speaker....at most...to every gig.
4: I'd never play anything by ZZ Top.
5: Soundcheck can never last more than 20 seconds. If Chuck has to kick the bass drum more than twice, he's just doing it to get on his nerves.

I mean, she can be pretty unreasonable. :embarrassed:
Click to expand...

Agree completely :grin:
 
Speaking of breaking strings here is something I always wanted to do:

Not sure if the story is true but I heard one night Larry Carlton was playing some amazing, burning solo when he broke his high E. Supposedly he pulled a nail clipper, cut the B and the G strings off and played an amazing, burning solo on the bass strings.
 
Another audience member perspective - look like you are having fun. It is always 10 times better to me if the band looks like they enjoy doing it. Energy is far more important than perfect playing.
 
Dew Knot Hump said:
Speaking of breaking strings here is something I always wanted to do:

Not sure if the story is true but I heard one night Larry Carlton was playing some amazing, burning solo when he broke his high E.
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im pretty sure it was just a made up story.. :tongue:
 
Jimmy James said:
Performers need to attempt to dress more like Yngwie than a cubicle rat watching football on the weekend.
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Unless of course they are playing punk rock, in which case they should still avoid looking like an average shmoe, but instead attempt to dress more like one of the Ramones, or one of the Clash.

Rancid has it down.
 
Mrs.P said:
These are good things. I have to say that as a person who has sat through many performances, and watched people at many performances.

Some other things to add -

If you have a lot of women present and they are dancing and there are men dancing with them, you may want to throw in a slow song or two. A lot of women like to do slow dances as well as fast dances. I know you guys get bored playing the sappy crap, but women are what bring in the men and keep them tere cheering you on, so maybe throw in a slow one or two for the girls and the guys that want to grope the girls.

We don't like watching you guys mess around on stage arguing and noshing about doing nothing. Smile and play you monkeys. :grin:
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Allot of good advice to be taken from this one, especially Smile and play you monkeys.
 
This is a nice topic for me, getting into playing full time in the seventies, doing mostly six and three-nighters. I started singing my own songs on acoustic, playing at drop-in centers and coffee houses with a flute playing friend and other acoustic friends. But when I bought a Strat and Marshall with effects I went from that to being the lead guitarist in a five piece rock showband, with a chick singer. I stopped singing, just concentrating on guitar, new to barre chords even. That equipment got me around more than I did at first.

But one night, the chick singer was having problems with her breasts backstage, and the rest of the band was looking at me. I didn't have a radio voice and wasn't working on a comedy routine, so I just started talking to the audience, talking about canoeing around the river, pointing out some new friends, and it was a rainy night, so I said we felt like jamming out a nice tune called "Down By the River", not a song the band did, but an easy jam tune.

That started me off talking behind the mike and eventually singing while making all that noise. Nowadays the tech is so good you can keep the tunes going even when you're not onstage, while back then you were changing patch chords for the synthesizer, or switching 9-volt floor effects for different songs, so it was nice to be friendly with the audience.

Yeah, that's true. Even back then before computers, people liked to hear their name coming from the p.a. system. I still get off on being paged, as in phone calls to where I'm hanging out saying get back, we got an extra set or matinee.

May all notes and gratuities come your way.
as always, John Watt
 
messedup0 Ok that's 2 on the ignore list. Seriously, it looks like some one just throws a bunch of words together and signs it.
 
:baimun:

jw.jpg
 
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