Yuku free message boards

Hi there,

Oh how fun is that!

You should definitely take breaks. No bar will expect you to play a full three hours.

I gig 2-4 weekends each month. Everyone structures their gigs differently, most total four hours. For the amount of material you have however, you can easily do a three hour gig, as was posted above, I agree with a similar format, you could play 3 sets around 40- 45 minutes with 25-30 minutes breaks.


Your sets could run something like this,
set 1, 7:00-7:45
set 2, 8:10 - 8:50
set 3 9:15 - 10:00

Making eye contact and chatting with the crowd always buys you time and is a great way to interact/read your audience. Asking them things like, who in the audience grew up here, who is visiting from out of town, who is celebrating something etc. Chat about the staff/service if it is great, and remind people to treat their servers well (with tips). Just talk to people and let conversation flow, often they give you great stuff to work with and you can kill lots of time. Ask about them, their unusual hats, or clothing, etc., tease them a little if they have a sense of humor, be sincere and people will respond.

I very rarely repeat songs but if I have to, I do only one of my favorites, and I tell the audience that I had a special request to do it again. Doing more than one song twice, is a sure signal you don't have enough material.

Some songs can easily be lengthened, like was mentioned above. Blues are easy for that, and you can always just repeat the last bridge chorus sequence of many songs, especially if people are grooving and enjoying it.

You can also research some of your favorite songs you are going to perform, and tell stories of how or why they were written, or chat about the artist you are about to cover and how they personally inspired you or what you may have learned from the certain song.


Have a great gig, post about it when its over!


Rach

my music link

Quote:

---

Doing more than one song twice, is a sure signal you don't have enough material.

---

I should qualify this quote by saying, that if you find you have to repeat songs because you have time to fill, then you just do it and don't worry about the above statement.

Really, it is not the kiss of death to repeat songs (we just try to avoid it), but sometimes, especially when you are still building your set/song list, you just have to.

As was mentioned earlier, most people from the first set will have left by the time you need to repeat, and new people will be in the bar, so you can get away with it (just tell them it was a request), but the staff do know if, and how much you repeat songs, and we always play to the staff as much as the audience. If the staff don't dig you too much, then you don't really last long at a house gig, so do keep that in mind, the staff are your friends. They are the ones who report to the owner if the owner does not show up to hear your gig.

Mostly be yourself, people respond to sincerity.

Oh yeah, and don't apologize if you make any errors (my first gig ever, I did that, and it was a mistake I will never forget or repeat). Very few people actually notice your errors so you don't need to point them out, just carry on if something goes wrong, pick up where you left off and it will go unnoticed. All the pros make mistakes, and you would never know it because they keep a poker face, or smile it off.

I am excited for you, have fun!

Rach

my music link