What's good everyone. It's been a minute.

I'm Replacing a guy in a cover band and 1st gig is next week.
1st time on the club scene and wanted some feedback.


How long are your normal sets?
They have us on for 4 hrs, This seems like a long time too me.

Also How many songs do you normally have in your set list?

Standard fare is 3 sets of 45 min to 1 hour.

Usually 10-12 songs per set.

4 hours is long for a club date, unless the pay is good.

It's been a while since I did regular sets in a club, but traditionally, a set is 40 minutes on and 20 minutes off. Get the details straight from the club owner. He or she may have something different in mind. 4 hours may be 4 sets of 40, or 4 sets of 45 with 15 off. The club may also want you to start at 20 past the hour so you end on the hour. Depending on the material, assume 3-4 minutes per pop song, 10-12 songs per set. Personally, I like to move from song to song without a lot of chatter in between numbers. It gives a more polished look. Good luck.

k.

Generally for a cover band we do 3-50 min sets with a 10 min break .. hard to say how many song but roughly 12 to 15 depending on the lenght of song. I've done some 2- 1 1/2 hr sets with 1/2 hr break, if their selling CD's

your milage may vary

I've always found that by playing one hour straight through on the first set makes it easier to end the job on the hour.

Every club gig around here is 4 hours. Usually 9pm-1am. If it's in a part of town that can get a 3am liquor license, it's 10pm-2am.

Anyway, (3) 1-hr sets with (2) 1/2-hr breaks. We do 15 songs per set (we don't stop), so 45 per night.

I've been in bands where we'd do (4) 45-min sets with (3) 20-min breaks to keep the breaks shorter and it comes out to the same amount of playing. Most most clubs want to stick to the 2 half hour breaks as they hire DJ's to play the latest dance crap during that time.

In one of my bands we do two 90 minute sets, with one 30 minute break. In my other band we do three one-hour sets, with two 30 minute breaks.

I still play in bands regularly with one of my bands, and we very often play one long 2 and 1/2 hour set. This of course, is when the crowd and the energy in the room is high so we don't want to stop the momentum. We start off smooth, ease into it and pace the energy just right to keep it rocking throughout the night.

+1

In my soon to be jam band, we will play 6 songs a nite! lmao

That is not entertainment, it is masturbation. On the plus side, you'll probably be doing it alone in your basement, jam bands of the "6 songs a nite" variety don't get much club work.

One of my bands does the 3 60's with 2 30 min breaks, and play 42-45 songs a night. The other band is a jam band and we'll do an hour set, take a break, and then do about 90 minutes. That band will play about 12 songs in a night.

BTW Bill, the jam band could work every weekend for decent money in this area. We play 1-2 times a month due to a guitar player who lives half way across the country now, but prior to him having to move away we worked every weekend. So your idea that jam bands can't get club work isn't true. If you are a crappy jam band, I'd agree, but a good band with a good following can work all they want.

"...the jam band could work every weekend for decent money in this area. "

Playing six songs a night? I live in a pretty big town for the college age crowd, (Pitt, Chatham, Carlow, C-MU, Point Park, Duquesne, Robert Morris LaRoche, St Vincent, and CCAC, Pgh Theological,Tepper, Kaplan, Bidwell, Hillel, Bradford, Everest, just a boatload of technical and Nursing schools) and there is no band that is working clubs that is able to do anything like that.

no, about 12 songs a night, as I already posted. 5-6 songs per set.

which is different to the post to which I responded, where the poster says he does 6 songs a night. I don't know where that would sell, but it would not sell in clubs here. You might be able to get away with 6 songs a set, but this is still a three set a night town. And jam bands don't do well here. There isn't one that I can think of that plays as much as once a month. (Other than jazz and blues bands, which I'm sure we are not discussing.)

I believe you are taking tonysounds post a little to literally.

Just because something might not work in your area, and bands play 3 sets a night, doesn't mean that's how it is everywhere. There are half a dozen jam bands around here that all work regularly.

That's already been done, over 40 years ago by the Grateful Dead.


Mike T.

It's refreshing to hear that live music is still appreciated in some parts of the country. I don't think you'd find the same level of support in L.A.

Not many are playing the "A" rooms but there is definitely a market in this area. Philly, DE, lots of deadheads who enjoy that type of music.

4 hours is typical. We do 3 sets. I craft the sets depending on crowd response/volume. If there are a lot of people in the place and having a good time, we extend the set (and usually take it out from the third set) because club owners like to keep people in the club and people tend to leave during band breaks. So, usually either the 1st or 2d set is an extended set (14+ songs) and the 3rd set is usually rather brief (maybe 8-10 songs).

We do three sets as well: 70 minutes on, 20 off, 70 on, 20 off, then 60 minutes.
Makes the night go much faster than 4 40 minute sets. Also the club owners appreciate it more that you keep the crowd. Too many/too long breaks will send the patrons right out the door and make it difficult to ask for more money.

You guys rock, 1st time I had to check this thread since I posted it. I think they give us 30 min breaks in-between sets.

19 Songs altogether So it should be a fun night.

Anyone in Columbus - The name of the BAND is FO/MO/DEEP

Dates

11/13/2009 10:00 - 2 AM at Dick’s Den
11/14/2009 6:00 - 10 at The Dream Lounge

What - are you going to play each song twice? You might try to put together a few more songs. Maybe come up with some extended instrumentals and the whole "introduce the band members" thing, that should buy you a couple minutes.

We go through 45 in a night, but even bands that play longer songs and screw around between songs (which I don't recommend) would need to have at least 30-35 to make it through a night without having to repeat songs (unless they're a jam band - but that's already been addressed). We've got close to 90 songs on our whole songlist so that we can change up the set list every night. We could conceivably play 2 nights in a row without repeating a song, although there are about 20 or so that we always play because they go over really well - we just change up the order somewhat.

Thanks Bill! After 30 years of gigging professionally, this is all news to me.

The exlamation point and "lmao" should have been a cue that I was being facetious as best.

Most gigs run 4 hours around here, though we have a few that are schedules for 3.

The main club that we play, we judge our first set length by the condition of the lead guitarist's beer. He always gets a pint Tucher, and when it's gone, it's the end of the set. Usually about an hour or so. From that point on we play it by ear. If we've got a responsive crowd, we'll play longer sets and shorter breaks. But our normal breaks run 15-20 minutes. It's too much fun to play, so we want to get back up there.

+1

[/quote]We go through 45 in a night, .[/quote]

80s, that's alot of songs for one night, out of curiosity, how many songs do you guys have on your overall song list that you can pull from

Keep in mind his band's repertoire: Most songs clock in around 4 minutes.

Let it be known that Taco Hat will play as long as the house lights stay down; if that means 7 or 8 songs, so be it!

I have rehearsal with all the band on Tue and Weds. The set list will be finalized at that time. I went to a couple of there shows and sat in with them on a couple of cuts. They usually extend most of the songs to around 7 minutes.

Tony is correct - at 7 min per song, that number would be quite a bit different. I posted this earlier, but we have close to 90 altogether. Probably about 20 stay in the set list every night but in a different order. We rotate the rest so if you come out 2 or 3 nights in a row, you'll get a different show. We leave as little time between songs as possible - not more than 5-10 seconds, typically 2-4 seconds, some we don't stop at all - the drummer's playing the beat for the next song while we're still holding out the ending chord. This keeps the dance floor full.

We do around 30-35 songs per night, divided in 2 sets (and a 15-20min break between sets). Various mix of classic rock songs, ranging from pretty short ones like "I know a little" to songs like "With a little help form my friends" or ....*ducks*... "Freebird"

I think that 7 minutes per song is going to be a bit optimistic unless you're giving everyone a solo each tune (not recommended), or someone is taking extended solos each tune (again, unless Stevie Ray is on the stand, I wouldn't recommend that, either). Someone else said to minimize chatter between songs and I would have to say +20 on that.
Songs in commercial form are usually less than 3:30. I think that they edit them to the bare minimum given the short attention span of the listening public, but much longer than that and you're running the risk of "musical masturbation" as others have said (first time I've seen that term but it's perfect). 5 minutes per tune is, I think, about the longest you should budget.
Songs, time between songs, and form (who solos when, how long, repeated choruses, etc.) will tighten up after several shows, so that's a long term thing. Do the set lists ahead of time and email them out. You don't have to absolutely adhere to them, but if you steal from the third set because the blonde with the nice rack wants to hear "Brick House" know that you'll need to make up for that later.
I think that you'll need at least 30 tunes before you head out. You can supplement your list with some blues (KC Blues, Mustang Sally...) or even an instrumental blues. Hell, play Nat's version of Route 66 and please the retro-swing folks.
In my book, repeating tunes simply because you've run out is a mortal sin. The ever-popular "what song do you guys want to play now?" ranks second on that list. If you read what the more experienced guys here are saying, they have enough material for a two night stand without repeating a tune (not that you ever do that).

No need to duck over "FreeBird". We have it in our arsenal especialy when there's some guy that thinks he's being funny and screams out "FREEBIRD!!!". Playing the song, and absolutely smoking it shuts them up real fast.

We'll play La Grange, and enjoy it. Although we kinda sunk very low last night. We'll play anything, even if we've never tried it before as a band. We had a patron yell out "Old Time Rock-n-roll". My immediate thought was "Do We Have To?"

Had an interesting request tonight that made me think about this thread.

We were doing our normal three 1-hr sets, two 1/2-hr breaks. It was a really good crowd all night - the dance floor stayed packed. We went on our 2nd break at 11:30, so our last set would be 12-1. The manager asked us not to go back on until 12:15 and still play til 1am. So 45 min break, 45 min last set. The reason? People buy more drinks when we're on break. When we're playing they're all out dancing and don't drink as much. So we did, and the place was still packed until we were done. I don't know what it actually did for their drink sales, but hey, fine with me - we get paid the same either way.

Or maybe more in the future if you negotiate again, as you've taught us in the other thread?

Actually, we already booked next year with them at a 25% price increase - he made a point to give me a little friendly trouble about it at the end of the night.

Yeah, we have those guys over here too! And it's actually the only time I enjoy playing Freebird, shutting someone up is so satisfying Ok, I like doing the solo on Freebird too, those chord changes are pretty sweet for endless pentatonic runs and rich chords OTher than that, it's pretty boring, especially when the guitar player goes frenzy. Good thing we only have it in our arsenal, we don't do it every time. Maybe every 10th time.

As someone already mentioned, you have to have at least 30 songs in your arsenal, and repeating songs is a mortal sin. I couldn't agree more. We have around 60 well practiced songs, and probably 40-50 semi-forgotten ones. 30 songs will probably be enough for 2-3h of play time (depending on the lenght of the songs), but you really have to have more ready. You never know when the audience will demand an encore, or when will the owner ask you to play for another hour (happened to me recently). Yo have to be ready for situations like that.

That reminds me, once I had a gig where we were going to alternate sets with a DJ. It was an extremely well payed gig, with lots of celebrities. The deal was to do 3 sets, 1h each. Long story short, the DJ canceled, and we had to entertain the guests for 6h. We did our planned 3 sets, we did an acoustic set,and then we did another hour of backup songs and eventually called out some of the present celebrities to sing with us (songs on demand/their own choce). At the end we still had a few songs we didn't play, but it was one hell of a long gig, but very fun. IT was 4 years ago, and we managed to get all gigs the organisers of that event were doing since then. My point is, if you play your cards well it will be noticed.

I went to see the remnants of Lynyrd Skynyrd (sp?) a few years back. At the concert I remarked to my friend that this was the one time when yelling "FREEBIRD!!!" would be appropriate.

Or you could learn the Reverend Billy C Wirtz calssic, "Stairway to Freebird"

Playing in cover bands makes me shudder every time I think of songs like Freebird, Celebrate, etc. There are a million of them, and they all make me retch. Like, if I was going to do a Don McClean song, it would be something like Vincent, not The Day The Music Died. I like to dig just a little deeper into the archives, not to get obscure, just to get away from the same old songs that everybody else plays.

Thankfully I haven't played in a cover band in many many years, and the last time that I did, it was all Rockpile, Joe Jackson, Tom Petty, and stuff like that.

Well, songs like Freebird, Sweet HOme Alabama, Suspicious MInds etc make me shudder as well, but it seems the audience digs those songs way more than slightly obscure but still known ones. YOu just have to make a compromise and do a number of "hits" and blend them together with the songs you actually enjoy doing.

Unless you don't give a fuck about the audience and the owner, and you play only for your own pleasure. But then, you could do that in the garage/studio, without the hassle of going to the venue.

Bob Schneider has a band called The Scabs. They put out an album called Freebird. For all I know, the cover is their response when anyone yells out "Freebird" at a show.

"Unless you don't give a fuck about the audience and the owner, and you play only for your own pleasure. "

Nahhh... most bands have enough hits that you don't HAVE to play their one great big signature song.