Live Shows 101: Basic Concepts and Crucial Advice

The obvious needs to be repeated. This is aimed at the inexperienced, but I firmly believe it’s useful for anyone and everyone in the business:

1. No matter what, be nice, be polite. Everyone has a bad day, and you can choose to either let it blow over you, or make it worse.  Even if you’re technically, logically and factually 100% right, still: don’t argue with the management, the promoters, the bouncer or the sound guy. A great way to get noticed and start up an effective word of mouth campaign is to be a smug dickhead at the venue.  Sure enough, you’ll make an impression and people will be talking about you.  That’s only a good thing if you’re Axl Rose or Jim Morrison. Both of whom are dead. 

2. Honor the details. Show up on time.  Have new batteries in all your equipment.  Be tuned up before sound check.  Bring your own adapters and cables, even if they never get used.  Have contact information, on your person, for anyone you might need to reach.  Be clear about all expectations and obligations before you leave home.  Despite all this preparation, there will still be unwelcome surprises and occasional disasters.  Hopefully it goes without saying, but still: stay calm when that happens.  There’s never any reason to freak out or get angry, that’s counter-productive and it also, you know...makes you look like a little kid.

3. Connect with your audience. You’re all there in a room, staring at one another.  If you can’t find an angle to make that entertaining and interesting, that’s about to be a very uncomfortable situation for everyone involved.  You need to project yourself, you need to fill the stage, you need to maintain the highest level of energy you can during your set.  It’s not an exaggeration to say that unless you get that down, you will not progress beyond your local scene.  You’re not smoking blunts and rapping with your boys, and you’re definitely not reciting your rhymes in your room, you are onstage and expected to deliver an entertaining performance for an audience.

4. Embrace Your Failures. No, really.  Listen: your failures are your sole creation, and your sole responsibility.  If you find yourself blaming the sound guy, or the crowd, stop.  Be honest.  Recognize that you’re making up a story to feel better. You will never evolve or improve if you keep trying to lay blame on others.  You failed because you failed, and the only important thing is finding out why. So embrace your failures.  Memorize every detail of them, close your eyes and relive them again and again until you find out exactly where you went wrong.  Success is great—it’s a huge endorphin boost, it’s a great handjob for your primate ego, but you don’t learn shit from success.  Failure is the most valuable opportunity for growth you could possibly have, if you use it.

5. Constantly Test the Product. If you do hip hop, odds are you’re not writing your verses while you’re onstage in front of a crowd.  You’re riding the bus, you’re in your room, you’re listening to beats and getting high.  Not surprisingly, a great deal of the material you come up with will be of limited interest to other people. Nothing wrong with that, but when you’re doing live shows, you want to emphasize—almost exclusively—the material that connects and resonates with strangers in the crowd.  There is a very real and large boundary between pandering and catering.  When you cater to the audience, it’s still your food, but you’re only serving the food you know they want.  This leads to my next point:

6. You’re Not Big Enough to Be Scarce. I see the same advice repeated everywhere: don’t over-expose yourself.  Play one show a month to increase demand.  Don’t oversaturate your market.  I would suggest that’s only true if everyone already knows who you are, what you do, and how you do it.  The fact of the matter is, every single gig you play, you will be reaching new people. Even within the same city.  Every venue has a shifting cast of regulars, and every venue has different regulars on different nights.  I have been working the state of Vermont for 5 years now and I have no illusions about it: 80% of the people in Vermont have no idea who I am or what I do.  When I play venues I’ve been in dozens of times, I will still wind up reaching dozens of new people every single show.

7. Keep a Journal. After every show, sit down and think over your experience.  Take notes on what went well, take notes on what needs to be worked on.  This might sound pointless, but I assure that after a few shows you will see your style, presence and delivery evolving in a more effective direction.  If you’re not changing up your set on a regular basis, you’re lying to yourself and you’re boring your audience.  Stay flexible and stay honest with yourself.

And finally:

8. YOUR AUDIENCE OWES YOU NOTHING. Not a single damn thing.  They are under no obligation to clap for you, to come up to the front of the stage, to throw their hands in the air, or to “get hype.” At any given show, more than half the audience is there to hang out and drink with their friends.  The small portion of the audience who’s there to listen to music is probably not there to see you.  This leaves your friends and family who showed up to the gig especially for you, and there’s no sense in being rude to them—they’re already doing you a big favor.  There is nothing more embarrasing than watching someone lecture the crowd. Focus on your show.  You’re there to perform and wether you’re in front of 10,000 screaming fans or 12 people with their backs to you, hunched over the bar, you need to give it everything.  Because being onstage with a microphone doesn’t happen often, and you need to make the most of it every chance you get.