Sets length and breaks

[jeremy c]

At the corporate parties and society weddings that I play, it's fairly unpredictable.

 

Sometimes we'll play a long dinner set which covers the whole time of dinner..90 minutes or so.

 

Sometimes the dance sets will be that long as well.

 

The plan is always 45 on 15 off, but it never works out that way...you have to read the room and you have to fit the band sets in around the other events of the evening. It always works out: there's plenty of what we call "random lag time" which is taken up by the party starting late, speeches, awards, toasts, cake cutting, photographs, etc., etc.

 

In my club days it was 45 on and 15 off for 5 sets a night, six nights a week. The first set was usually an hour. I did that for many years, often with other gigs on the off night and on weekend afternoons as well.

 

When playing a musical, there are usually two acts with an intermission. The first act might be an hour, intermission is 20 minutes and the second act is 45 minutes. Shows don't pay as well as the other gigs, but you get hired to do eight of them a week (two on Friday and two on Saturday), so it adds up. You also rarely need to bring anything other than your bass.

 

 

The worst schedule I ever had was in some small town in Nevada where we played one hour sets at 9,11,1, and 3 with an hour off in between each one. This went on for 6 nights a week for two weeks and it seemed like an eternity.

[Edendude]

50 to 60 minute sets, with a 20 to 30 minute break is the norm on the club scene, in my area. But if the bar suddenly fills up, we may extend our set out to as much as 90 mins, to keep the patrons entertained and staying put.

[wishicouldplaylikescottamb]

Originally posted by Phil W:

Thanks Keith!

[Tom Capasso]

I have done the "45/15 with wiggle room" thing with my cover band. That has worked fairly well for bars where we're playing 3 sets from 10:30 to 1:30. It's worked for some private parties, though the first break was usually longer so we could eat and so the crowd could eat and socialize. I agree that more than 20 minutes risks losing the crowd (especially in bars). The other side of that is our crowd is mostly our own friends and family, and you barely have time to say hello to people.

 

One question in the original post was about the time between songs. We try to group 2-3 songs in the setlist so we can go from one to the other without more than a few seconds. I've found that there are many factors in determining when to take more time between. Certainly a tough song for the singer is one case, and the setlist should respect this as well (by making the next song easy to sing or sung by someone else). Still, sometimes you need to breathe. For us the biggest factor has been guitar changes (we try to not retune, but swap instruments instead). We do minimal stage banter, but there are still times when we might go a minute or two between songs in a set.

 

Tom

[jeremy c]

Time between songs?

 

Often it is zero...or even less than that. (often one person will start the new song while the rest of the band is vamping out on the old song).

 

I've played a lot of continuous 45 minutes to 1 hour sets. There's no set list either. The bandleader is calling the next tune (or just starting it while we are playing). Never take anything for granted...any song could happen at any time.

 

I enjoy sets like that...and so does the audience. Then when you take a break it's not just for the band...everyone in the room needs a break.

[thanny XIII]

Two hours. Straight. No breaks. High energy. Lots of shouting. And we set up[ and break down our shit with little help. We are fit machines.

[TimR]

Excellent. When I was 15 I could play an hour and a half of rugby in the morning. 2 hours of squash in the afternoon. Spend all night drinking and clubbing. Get home at three.

Of course I would then sleep till midday.

 

Nowadays I get a Six year old and a Two year old bouncing on my bed at 6am on a Sunday. That's usually great if I've been up till three in the morning unloading gear from my car.

[Fred TBP]

for "bar pay", it works out to 50/20/50/20/50, which covers about 3:10 hours (10:20PM-1:30AM) and we can shift the start time depending on the crowd and how competent the sound guy is.

 

for "real pay" (when was the last time I saw that?) I'll work in another 30-45 minutes of play time. Basically that translates into another 25-33% for another set and we work off our reserve song list.

 

Thanks to energy drinks like Red Bull and protein bars, I can manage the last set and the teardown process without crashing.