Too much time between songs during a gig

you hit a nerve here uncle Lar

I have literally walked out of multiple shows because this irritates me to no end

the F'n last thing I want to hear when I pay to see a band is some cat strumming the chords lightly and telling me what the song is about.....or when he wrote it....or what he wants me to do when he says a certain line......or what he is "feeling" tonight.....or if it is a cover song.....telling us the first time he heard it ....or why he loves it......STOP!!!!

for the love of god .....play the song!!!!!!

in my personal opinion...aside from a hello in the beginning and a thank you at the end .... everyone needs to shut their pie hole and play music


note to bands......JUST F"N PLAY!!!!!!!!

Agreed 100%!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Just as a radio station with too many ads or talkovers gets switched over or turned off in my car, a band with too much talk time gets me uninterested really quicky. This is why in any band I'm not a sideman in, I tend to run the set from the setlist.

Most of the bands I've been in share this work ethic and try to minimize dead time between songs, even rehearsing specific setlists to practice those transitions between songs. Give about 10 seconds for applause, whoever's starting the song gets the right pedal setting, we lock eyes, I click four, we go. Audiences appreciate a band that delivers music all night long and keeps their yaps shut. There are times to do shoutouts, band roll calls, etc, but doing them over a vamp works too, and keeps the people on the dance floor.

I agree with Bermuda, I have no idea why some bands can't master this simple yet crucial detail. Even -- dare I say especially -- if you're playing some place with a dance floor. Frustrating.
 
..... because i could see the crowds energy lapse. it felt like with each tune we had restart to get the crowd back.

How can the front guy not get this? I feel that happen too often too. I love my trio's musicianship but the entertainment factor just isn't there. Momentum is critical and can't bog down. It's like sex. You can't start,stop, start stop. There is a building process. Maybe as drummers who support we have a better sense of this than the guy who "rides the wave".
 
you hit a nerve here uncle Lar

I have literally walked out of multiple shows because this irritates me to no end

the F'n last thing I want to hear when I pay to see a band is some cat strumming the chords lightly and telling me what the song is about.....or when he wrote it....or what he wants me to do when he says a certain line......or what he is "feeling" tonight.....or if it is a cover song.....telling us the first time he heard it ....or why he loves it......STOP!!!!

for the love of god .....play the song!!!!!!

in my personal opinion...aside from a hello in the beginning and a thank you at the end .... everyone needs to shut their pie hole and play music

seriously!

in the mid 90s I went to see Jeff Buckely at Sin-e' in NYC

I was a huge Buckley fan and was really looking forward to hearing him live

he came out sounding amazing......then between every single song proceeded to tune with the rest of the band in complete silence , dry his hair with a towel , talk to the band , ask the crowd how they are doing tonight, take a drink, talk to the band some more, dry his face with the towel, check his tuning again ......

between every F'n song......like a full minute or 2 or more......between every tune

the set had no flow and it was supremely irritating

note to bands......JUST F"N PLAY!!!!!!!!

You would hate going to a Todd Snider gig...
 
I could see lots of talk between songs at a folk concert. Or a Christian artist who tells life stories or evangelizes/prays between songs. Those types of music have more of a political or religion-based focus.

But if you are going to see a straight rock or pop band, you don't want to hear the band jabbering between songs.
 
Great thread.
One of the kings of filling dead air and using it to their advantage for me, is HATE ETERNAL.

The band is obviously death metal, and in between songs where there's space (and not just running into the next song) they sample a sound of, for lack of a better term, 'hell.'

Its an ominous winds, fire, death growl... low in volume, but fills the space with a 'vibe' so even if they're not saying anything, you feel like the show is still going. Its not overcrowding the sound so if the singer wants to say anything he still can. But it fills this space amazingly. It always struck me as both practical and additive to the show as a whole, hellish, amazing piece of work.

x Chris x
 
I went to Gigantour and saw Motorhead and Megadeth.

Motorhead likes to talk in between songs (and lemmy cut his finger like 3 times so they had LOADS of dead time).

The Dave gets on stage and does his planned out show. Huge difference.

I like how he sets time to talk in the set and indruced Hanger 18 with, "This song is about little green people" and starts playing.
 
You would hate going to a Todd Snider gig...

Love Todd Snider!! In a folky atmosphere, and with his wit, it is certainly acceptable...reminds me, in a way, of Tom Waits. I really enjoy the "behind the music" type of atmosphere at their shows.

I suppose that's indicative of their style though, I wasn't going there to dance, lol.
 
To chime in a bit more, there are a few times in which dialogue between songs is very beneficial to the show.

For instance, I saw a band called Masked Intruder (I get a chance to play a show with them July 11th!), and they were great at it. Their gimick is that, they wear all black, but each member wears a different color ski mask. Their shoes and instruments are also the same color as their respective masks. They sing creepy pop punk love songs about stalking girls and such. they actually have a bit on their CD about breaking into a girl's house just to sing love songs to her. VERY funny! But to add to it, when they're on stage, they all talk with Brooklyn accents, and tell 'prison stories'

I still remember the one line. He said "You guys like beer?!"

Everybody cheered

"We used to drink in prison, except we had to make toilet wine"

Laughter and cheers

"It's not as good as it sounds. It was more toilet than wine"

Immense laughter

They put on a great show, and I'm excited to get the chance to play with them
 
To chime in a bit more, there are a few times in which dialogue between songs is very beneficial to the show.

For instance, I saw a band called Masked Intruder (I get a chance to play a show with them July 11th!), and they were great at it. Their gimick is that, they wear all black, but each member wears a different color ski mask. Their shoes and instruments are also the same color as their respective masks. They sing creepy pop punk love songs about stalking girls and such. they actually have a bit on their CD about breaking into a girl's house just to sing love songs to her. VERY funny! But to add to it, when they're on stage, they all talk with Brooklyn accents, and tell 'prison stories'

I still remember the one line. He said "You guys like beer?!"

Everybody cheered

"We used to drink in prison, except we had to make toilet wine"

Laughter and cheers

"It's not as good as it sounds. It was more toilet than wine"

Immense laughter

They put on a great show, and I'm excited to get the chance to play with them

no offense to them or you ..... but that sounds horribly corny and exactly like everything I hate about bands who try to do "Shtick" between songs

these are the things that have me walking toward the exit

my take is....if you are not Bermuda ...leave the shtick alone
 
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As the frontman in my last band of 16 years, I hate dead air. I want to talk as little as possible.Every song doesn't have to be introduced. We worked out the sets in advance and didn't change them up, until we played the same town again.

We were a fairly extreme band. We had a few strategic stops, so the drummer could breath for 30 seconds or so. I'm not going to lie. I said almost the same thing every night, during the run of a particular set.The drummer would start the count as I was talking.Out of a 10 song supporting setlist,only 2 songs would be free standing and not segued into other tunes.If we were opening, we would do 30 minutes without stopping.

Phil Anselmo is the king of running his mouth for 10 minutes between every tune.
 
no offense to them or you ..... but that sounds horribly corny and exactly like everything I hate about bands who try to do "Shtick" between songs

these are the things that have me walking toward the exit

my take is....if you are not Bermuda ...leave the shtick alone

I agree with you Anthony, "Shtick" can very quickly and easily lead to awkwardness and take a lot away from the music. However, sometimes it really adds something special to the performance.

For example:

There was an expat band here in Southern Taiwan called "The Apes Have Landed" a couple of years ago, and their shtick was a Planet of the Apes theme. They didn't wear gorilla costumes or anything ridiculous like that, but their drummer had a little sample box, and as an intro to every show, he would play the Charleton Heston "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!" quote with a bunch of background noise. The band would then explode into two or three hard rock songs... In between songs, the drummer would loop in different voice samples from The Planet of the Apes, along with some accents or other background sounds.

Then, their final bit of "shtick" at the end of a show was to throw out dozens of bananas at the crowd with Planet of the Apes quotes written on them in marker.

It was brilliantly done IMO.
 
I agree with you Anthony, "Shtick" can very quickly and easily lead to awkwardness and take a lot away from the music. However, sometimes it really adds something special to the performance.

For example:

There was an expat band here in Southern Taiwan called "The Apes Have Landed" a couple of years ago, and their shtick was a Planet of the Apes theme. They didn't wear gorilla costumes or anything ridiculous like that, but their drummer had a little sample box, and as an intro to every show, he would play the Charleton Heston "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!" quote with a bunch of background noise. The band would then explode into two or three hard rock songs... In between songs, the drummer would loop in different voice samples from The Planet of the Apes, along with some accents or other background sounds.

Then, their final bit of "shtick" at the end of a show was to throw out dozens of bananas at the crowd with Planet of the Apes quotes written on them in marker.

It was brilliantly done IMO.

playing movie samples is a lot different than talking about prison toilet wine in my opinion
 
The one thing I hate the most at a gig is when a guitarist switches between different guitars all the time. I understand if the next song is in a different tuning, where just switching guitars could be faster than retuning your guitar, but most of the time I've seen it, it's just the egotistical guitarist wanting to show off all of his guitars. You don't see the drummer stopping between songs to switch out his rack toms or cymbals for no apparent reason.


Point is, you had better have a good reason to switch out guitars at a gig, and any instrument you plan on gigging with should at least be able to hold its tune.

Not sure I agree with you here man. One of the bands I play in the guitarist/singer brings about 4 or 5 guitars to a show. Each one is different, (i.e. strat, SG, tele, Les Paul), and he switches them to get a different sound for a specific song. And he's really got it down...I mean sometimes I can't even get a sip of beer between songs he's so fast! Perhaps he's an exception to the rule.

One drummer that springs to mind that switches out his stuff a lot (mostly snares) is Steve Jordan. Again this is mostly due to the sound he wants for the next song.

Another band (blues) that I play in never has a set list but the bandleader is pretty switched on. A great crowd reader. In this outfit we've developed hand signals that dictate certain things. Things like 'I've gotta tune, play something for a sec'. This to me is a really fun thing because I generally improvise something with the bass player...generally something off topic like a jazz swing or latin feel type thing. And sometimes we'll vamp on it for a while too. It is a great way to keep the folks on the floor as we're still entertaining them albeit in a different way than what they might expect.
 
no offense to them or you ..... but that sounds horribly corny and exactly like everything I hate about bands who try to do "Shtick" between songs

these are the things that have me walking toward the exit

my take is....if you are not Bermuda ...leave the shtick alone

To each their own, I guess.

It seems that, whenever I talk about their performance, it turns out to be a 'you just had to be there' type of thing. But then when people see them, they normally get it and love it, but you can't expect everybody to.

On another note, at the last show I played, the band had a local comedian do a short set, whilst introducing them, and I thought that was pretty awesome, because the guy was just so funny.

I guess I just like extra, unnecessary time in a set when it's funny to me.
 
I went to Gigantour and saw Motorhead and Megadeth.

Motorhead likes to talk in between songs (and lemmy cut his finger like 3 times so they had LOADS of dead time).

The Dave gets on stage and does his planned out show. Huge difference.

I like how he sets time to talk in the set and indruced Hanger 18 with, "This song is about little green people" and starts playing.

Dave constantly invokes the "you didn't come here to hear me talk" quote onstage (although he may have a quick rant towards the end of the set). If only all frontmen could follow this standard!
As for me, whenever some sort of technical mishap would befall my old covers band, the singer would inevitably launch into a solo rendition of "Time of Your Life" by Green Day to cover the rest of us!
 
I've noticed two words that pop up in the posts about this topic and they are crowds & audience. It would seem there is a different expectation from those two titles depending on the act and the venue, no?
 
I've noticed two words that pop up in the posts about this topic and they are crowds & audience. It would seem there is a different expectation from those two titles depending on the act and the venue, no?

and in my band's case, having an audience at all is a success story
 
I was reading up on the history of the band Twisted Sister, who I went to see many times in the early 80s at a local club in NY where I grew up. I remember their rants between songs:

At this point, the bands popularity began to soar as the band, especially Dee and Jay Jay started to talk (rap) to the audience about current topics of the day between songs. These raps started to take on a life of their own and pretty soon the band could get away with playing one song per set and talk the rest of the time.
 
I hate downtime between songs. I'm a pro, so I conceal my frustration if it's happening while we're on the bandstand. But after the gig, I let the band have it.

I played with some cats who were still managing sound/monitor issues between songs halfway into the first set, and the tuning problems were chewing up a lot of time, too (although, to be fair, the crazy changes in outdoor temperature were contributing).

After the set, I just laid it out to all of them like this: You motherf***ers need to fix that. The audience is dying in front of our eyes.

The next gig I played with them, they had a crisp, flowing set with minimal interruptions and I complimented them on it. They thanked me for pointing it out and said they just hadn't thought much about it before.

I've also gotten fired from bands for being so direct. But I can live without those gigs, eh.
 
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