Do you have a band? Do you “gig” around locally now, or aspire to in the near future? Do you desire to know what it takes to not look like a total amateur chump? Well, I may not be a complete expert, but I do know a thing or two in the way of stage presence.
First, let me introduce myself. My name is Brian Biggs. I have been to many live shows, small and large. I have played a few shows as well in my own original song oriented ensembles. These have for the most part been within my own hometown, and are very thinly attended. This is how I believe I came to be an expert on what you should and shouldn’t do in a rock show. This is for your own good, and optimal audience enjoyment as well.
Part One: Appearance Matters!
- While onstage, try to wear items that you would actually wear off the stage. There is nothing worse than the “gig shirt”- you know what I’m talking about. That shiny button-up shirt with dragons on it. Or that jester hat you bought at Hot Topic some time ago. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t try to look nice for your gig, but make sure you don’t wear something that screams “special outfit!”.
- No tank top undershirts. You look pale enough already, whitey.
- No taking your shirts off entirely, either. Unless you’re in Fugazi, you don’t deserve to take it off.
- Matching outfits are okay, if you are fine with the idea of no one respecting you at all. Are you a gimmicky band? Then in that case, matching outfits are probably fun. Have a good time being gimmicky.
Part Two: Stage Etiquette.
- No random drum fills between songs. Why do you keep doing that, Mr. Drummer? Have you ever been to see a REAL band that has a drummer that keeps tapping the drums for no reason after the song has been over?
- Song title announcements should be used sparingly.
- Stage banter should be left only to the professionals. Rarely does an unheard-of band ever have banter that comes across as “witty” or “memorable” or even “funny” at all. You’re more than likely to ruin any sort of cool mystique or “coolness” in general by opening your dumb mouth.
- Always keep in mind the number one rule of show business: “Keep ‘em wanting more!” Unless your audience knows most of your songs, your limit should be 40 minutes. 25 minutes is more ideal, but you should check first with the promoter to make sure you don’t void your 15 dollar paycheck by playing too short of a time. How many times have you seen a terrible local and/or opening act? I’m willing to bet that over half of these bands would be considered at least half as decent if they just shaved about 15 minutes off of their set.
- Going back to stage banter, there are many cliché phrases that should be banned from the mic for eternity. Here are a few: “The more you drink, the better we sound!”, “Don’t request Free Bird, man! We might just play it!”,
Part Three: Alcohol
- I know a pint of delicious microbrew sounds like the way to go, but bottlenecks are way cooler on stage. Trust me on this.
- No cocktails. Hard alcohol is fine, just do it in shot form. If you must do it over ice or with tonic or something, just make sure you don’t use a straw.
- Don’t talk about how drunk you are. Don’t pretend to be drunk.
Part Four: Promotions/Marketing
- Don’t make t-shirts for your band for the wrong reasons. If you want to be artistic, and make something cool, then great! If you want to make some crap looking shirt just to promote yourself to get famous, then it sucks. Your cheap shirts will just make your cheap band even cheaper.
- And while we are on the subject of t-shirts, never under ANY circumstance put your terrible website’s address on the shirt (or bumper sticker for that matter).
- If you must constantly talk about your band to your friends and anyone you meet, do them a favor and have something cool to give them. Don’t hand them some bumper sticker with a web address or demo CD that has cheap looking computer printed out bullshit on it. Put some hand made love into it, at least. Drawings are nice. Anything is nicer than some blurry .jpg you carelessly google image searched, that is completely out of context.
- I don’t want to get into websites too much, but if you put some songs online, don’t put 30 second song samples instead of the whole jam. No one is going to steal your song for their own profit, or even bother to “illegally” distribute it to someone else. If they did, you should be stoked. 30 second streaming audio? Are you kidding me?
Part Five: Equipment
- Finally, let me speak for a moment about equipment. If you’re going to go cheap, then go cool at least. That rad 70s Japanese guitar may not stay in tune as well as that brand new Jackson you are checking out at Guitar Center. Hell, it may not even sound nearly as good. But you look like a 15 year old playing that shiny guitar. Old guitars are way cooler. Duh.
- 6 string bass? What? Why?
- Are you playing at a place that has no bigger capacity than say, 40 people? Leave your Marshall stack at home. Nobody’s impressed by your big amp. Someday, maybe you can open for Led Zeppelin, and shred down the arena roof with it. But for now, a single speaker (or tasteful dual speaker) will most likely do.
- My drum set up has three cymbals not counting my hi-hats. Honestly, I probably really only need one cymbal. But I am willing to make an exception for myself. Keep it simple though. Double kicks are not necessary. Listen to godheadSilo, or Karp. Amazing metal drumming. One kick pedal.
- Also, drummers- No China Crashes. If you don’t know what they are, don’t find out. You don’t want one. Splashes are kind of out too, but I’ll leave that up to you.
Okay, well I think that’s about enough for today. I can probably think of about a million more points, but I will just have to leave that for another time. Please respond in the comments if you believe I have made an error, or can think of something I accidentally omitted.
-Brian
