What Makes A Good Show?

902s CD Release show

When you are a gigging band, some things are laid out in front of us:

How long we will play, what we get paid, the typical audience.

Some things we just pick up on:

The audience that night, the stage, the scenery around us.

Its all subtle:

So we get in at a bar we've never played at before.  We  have an idea of the audience, we see old tin signs on the wall and a decent row of Harleys parked in the street.  Tonight we play loud.  We probably aren't being paid too much, but we can pass around the tip jar.  Some bar crowds can be very generous, others not so much.  Our job is to make them generous.  Gauge their reactions, go from there.  They liked our over of Dwight Yoakam?  We'd better play some Graham Parsons.  They liked our cover of Springsteen?  Better play some Mellencamp.  Your audience on that given night is more of an influence than anything else around you.  Always keep them in mind.

Next lesson:  The flow of the show.