Conference napalm::guitar

Well, I'm no vet, but I was in  a band once that did a medley
of:

Dark Side
What I like About You

And another song with Em, A and D in it (forgot the name).  Three songs that
had the same structure, and we mixed the choruses in the end.
It was fun.

Born to be wild and American band make a good medley too.

jc

    re-1 
    
    
    R.O.C.K in the USA   maybe?
    
    
    Dan , thanks for the reply 
    

Yep !  Thats it.  Those three make a good medley.

jc

What I meant by mixing the chorus was:

What I like about you
(R O C K  In The USA)
What I like about you
(R O C K  In The USA)

Have two folks sing one chorus, and two others sing the other.
etc...

OK, here's my rough shot at 3 45-minute sets. Don't ask me why I picked them - 
its basically a combination of experience and gut instinct.

alan

SET ONE
     Heartache tonight   
     Get back
     Scarecrow
     Cuts like a knife
     Can't Explain     
     Who'll stop the rain
     Hide your love away
     It's so easy 
     It's all right
     That'll be the day
     Is she really going out with him 
     Still haven't found 
     Good Times Bad Times
     Help
     Surrender                               

SET TWO    
     Small Town
     Bad Moon a rising 
     Don't be cruel                          
     Crumblin' down
     I want you to want me 
     Just came back (to say goodbye)
     Hurts so good
     I will follow
     Knockin' on heaven's door 
     Just what I needed
     Summertime Blues 
     Back in the USSR 
     Swingtown
     Squeeze Box
     No surrender
     Jumpin' Jack Flash 

SET THREE
     Somekind of wonderful 
     Move it on over
     Battleship chain
     Runaway Sue
     Pretty Woman 
     Gloria
     Your Song
     Authority Song  
     Brown eyed girl
     Sweet Home Alabama
     Summer of 69 
     That's what I like about you
     Takin' care of Business
     Hard to handle 
     Tush

ENCORE
------
     I wanna hold your hand 
     All my Loving 
     Twist & Shout


DROPPED
-------
     Already gone    
     I'm a believer
     Proud Mary 
     You really got me
     Jet Airliner
     Song remains the same

SONGS I DON'T KNOW
------------------
     Five long years 
     She ain't pretty             
     Avenue A  
     Long, long gone
     Somebody 
     38 years old
     Big League
     Untouchable one 
     Flip Flop & Fly  
     Thunderin' hearts
     2night is a wonderful night
     Someone to dance with 
     Voo-doo thing 
     Yer so bad
     My mistake
     I got U
     Citizen cane
     Kiss me you fool
     Girl with a problem
     All I want
     Crime against love
     Two girls in 1  
     Remember
     Keep on a lovin' me girl 
     Dirty Blvd 
     Somethin' to live for 
     Take you home tonite

    Alan 
    
    Thanks for taking the time to look at the list, one thing I didn't
    quite understand was what does dropped mean? As far as your choice of
    set arraingment(sp?)  it looks really good.
    
    
    Dan  

I assumed it meant "I hate these songs".

I mean lets face it, we all have some we hate right ?
You'll NEVER see me play "Brown Eyed Girl" again...  Even if
I did consult with Paula Abdul and Jamez Hetfield for arrangement
and coreography.  :)

jc

    
> one thing I didn't quite understand was what does dropped mean? 

Well, first I took out all the songs I didn't know, since I wouldn't know
where to put them. Then I took the 45 best songs and arranged them into
three sets of 15 each (and keeping the Beatles stuff for an encore). The
remainder I put in the 'Dropped' category to let you know what I knew, but
didn't use.

As for why I didn't use them, either I thought they've been done to death,
or they just wouldn't fit in no matter where you put them (ie. "Song Remains
The Same" is a great song, but who wants to hear it in bar, especially since
most bands will do an inferior version of it?)

> As far as your choice of set arrangement it looks really good.

Thanks. I usually make up the set lists for the bands I'm in, and it works
out real well. I tried to put the listening-oriented songs in the beginning, 
and then let the night build, so you're playing all well-known, upbeat,
dance-rock songs at the end of the night.

alan

    Well, personally much I'd rather hear a half decent cover of "The Song
    Remains The Same", which is a wonderful song that I've NEVER heard a
    band cover and can't recall ever actually hearing on the radio, the to
    hear them do "Good Times, Bad Times" which I've heard sooo many times I
    hate it!
    
    I think it's much more fun to hear bands cover songs nobody covers then
    to hear a million bands playing rehash crap (IMO) like most of the
    covers you hear people do like:
    
     Heartache tonight 
     Who'll stop the rain
     Bad Moon a rising 
     Crumblin' down
     Back in the USSR 
     Swingtown
     Somekind of wonderful 
     Move it on over
     Pretty Woman 
     Brown eyed girl
     Sweet Home Alabama
     Takin' care of Business
     Hard to handle 
     Already gone    
     Proud Mary 
     You really got me
     Jet Airliner
    
    I've heard far too many bands cover these.  I think it's so lame, when
    there are a ton of great songs that don't get covered by the same
    artists that everyone covers the same old stuff.  One of my personal
    criteria for hearing a band is that if they play "Taking Care of
    Business" I'm outta there (barring some overwhelming extreneous reason
    for not leaving immediately).
    
    Not meaning to step on anyone's toes or anything, it just bugs me that
    there is so much great music and so many bands choose to cover only
    this tiny little subset of it.
    
    (BTW, for whoever was asking about the arranging the sets, I thought
    you had a lot of good songs that weren't the standard cover band fare,
    my complements.)
    
    Greg

     I think we have stumbled on to somthing here,re:.8,.9. As far as the
    Song remains the same, the version we do is not to bad at all ,but I
    know where your coming from when you say , It would most likely be an
    inferior version. I think about this with almost all "classics" I play
    and have come up with a sort of rule " I the song is to well know ,you
    better either stay away from it OR do a kicking version.
     
     Agree with the build up of songs to make sure everyone is up dancing
    by the end of the evening ,also really like the beatles stuff for the
    encore.
    
    Re .9 (BTW, for whoever was asking about the arranging the sets, I
    thought you had a lot of good songs that weren't the standard cover band
    fare,my complements.)
     
     Thanks , for above. This comment along with the referance to Takin'
    Care of Business" touched something off for me.
    If I ever hear "Old Time Rock n Roll" or " Mony Mony "  I'm out , gone 
    
     

    Well, How about a list of songs that ALWAYS gets them out on the dance
    floor??
    
    Lowell
    

Enter:Sandman - Metallica
Highway To Hell - AC/DC
I'll Be There For You - BonJovi

    A few from the Southern side ....
    
    - Gimme Three Steps (Skynyrd)
    - Dreams (Molly Hatchet)
    - Allright Now (Free)
    - Rocky Top (yup, it's bluegrass, but I've seen ALL types of crowds get
    	into it)
    - Cocaine (I know it inhales, but John Q. Public loves it, especially
    	late in the evening)
    - Wonderful Tonight (Clapton)
    - Every Rose Has It's Thorn (Poison)
    - Mainstreet (Bob Segar)
    - Angel Eyes (Jeff Healey)
    - Dumas Walker (Kentucky Headhunters)
    
    
    Scary

    Cherry,Cherry (Niekl Diamond)
    R.O.C.K. (John Cougar)
    Waht i lkike About You (romantics)
    
    		-Fred
    

    
    
    
                       It's destroying your typing!
    
    

    Note 2697 got me thinking...
    
    I'm interested in the mechanics of set construction.  I haven't been in a
    working band for a long time, so I'd like to find out how it's done
    these days.  Assuming a bar/dance cover band, four 45-minute sets and a 
    "normal" bar (and what does that mean these days?), how do you decide 
    which tunes to put where?

    I've generally followed the policy of putting mellower tunes in the
    earlier set(s), making each set progressively livelier; and within each
    set try to put the softer numbers toward the beginning, harder toward
    the end, trying to achieve a gradual building of excitement/interest as 
    the set/evening progresses.  I've always tried to avoid drastic changes
    in tempo from one song to the next.

    Is it still done this way?  Do you always (or ever) put the slow dance 
    (backrub) numbers first in a set?  Does one do something different at 
    the end of the last set?  I do understand that ones plans are always 
    subject to modification by the club owner; under what circumstances 
    would you modify your set in the middle of a gig?
    
    BTW, good info in this note, especially .8 and .9.

    Dave

    My personal rule of thumb is to put the Black Flag songs at the end of
    the last set.  Guaranteed to clear the dance floor.
    
    gh

    Re: .16
    
    A more serious response.
    
    Here's the rules I use:
    
    1. Avoid two songs in a row in the same key
    
    2. If you have multiple vocalists, try to switch off on every song
    (if possible...i.e. each vocalist has enough songs!)
    
    3. Open with a good uptempo tune
    
    4. Put a slow tune every three or four songs
    
    5. Put long "jam" tunes in the second half of the set
    
    6. Close the set with a *really wild* uptempo number
    
    7. New tunes always go in the first set until they feel comfortable.
    
    						Dave Evans

Yeah, The Edge... er, Brian said a lot of things that I would also say:

>    3. Open with a good uptempo tune
>    5. Put long "jam" tunes in the second half of the set
>    6. Close the set with a *really wild* uptempo number

Are three rules that I always follow! Brian says a slow tune every 3 or 4
songs - that's a little much for my taste, we usually have one slow song
per set, about halfway through or so.

The first set, you have to assume that no one is gonna dance; it's just
the way it is in most clubs. So we tend to put what I call "listening
music" in the first set - stuff like "Cold Shot" by SRV, "Hold On Loosely"
by .38 Special, "Lawyers Guns and Money" by Warre Zevon, "Losing My Religion"
by REM, "Seeing Things" by the Black Crowes, etc. 
 
Later, in the second and third sets, we'll kick it in with the surefire 
dance stuff - "What I Like About You", "Old Time Rock And Roll", "Sharp 
Dressed Man", "Mony Mony", "Keep Your Hands To Yourself", etc.

It's good if you can make a medley of 2-3 songs, so if poeple get up to dance, 
they stay up for a good 10-15 minutes. For instance, we run "Midnight 
Confession" and "Brown Eyed Girl" together, "What I Like About You" goes with
"Mony Mony", and "Old Time R&R" goes with "Doo Wah Diddy".

And most important - go from one song to the next as quick as possible, with
as little dead air as you can! It's easy to lose a full dance floor, and 
you have to work really hard to get them all back up again. Once you've
got 'em, don't let them go! (And it doesn't take too long either - even
just 15-30 seconds can be too long between songs...)

alan

Here's an example - this is our setlist from last Friday night:

SET ONE				SET TWO
One Way Out			Pretending
The One I Love			Midnight Confessions
Under Pressure 			Brown-Eyed Girl
Cold Shot			I Saw Her Standing There
One				Pretty Woman (Roy)
Losing My Religion		Burning Love
Every Breath You Take		Breakup Song
Right Here Right Now		Desperado
Pulling Mussels			Brown Sugar
Hold On Loosely			Roadhouse Blues


SET THREE			SET FOUR
Mysterious Ways			I'll Melt With You
Long Train Running		Taking Care of Business
What I Like About You		New Sensation	
Mony Mony			Two Princes
Pump It Up			Hard To Handle
Working For A Living		All Of My Love
Wonderful Tonight		Jenny Jenny
Two Tickets To Paradise		Good Love
Old Time Rock and Roll		Sharp Dressed Man
Doo Wah Diddy			Keep Your Hands
Bad Case Of Loving You		Jealous Again

				Gimme Three Steps

EXTRAS
------
Love And Happiness, Pretty Woman (Gary), Don't Cry, Born on the Bayou, Twist 
And Shout, Lawyers Guns and Money, Knockin' On Heaven's Door, Boom Boom, Back 
In The USSR, Seeing Things, Don't Be Cruel, Daytripper, Texarkana, I Think 
I'm In Love, Summer of '69, Remedy

   It also really depends on the type of music you're playing, and the type
   of crowd that's there to listen to it.  For instance, from Brian's last
   post (.18):

   >     4. Put a slow tune every three or four songs

   In a "dance/rock club" environment this can have the effect of clearing 
   the dance floor every 3 or 4 songs, and then it can take 3 or 4 more songs
   to get them back up dancing again (assuming, of course, the crowd's there
   for the faster stuff).

   >     6. Close the set with a *really wild* uptempo number

   And then keep one uptempo song in reserve for a encore, if needed.  (We
   had to do 3 encore tunes at our last gig because of this...)
 
   But:

   >     3. Open with a good uptempo tune

   Very good idea, but don't use your BEST stuff, as the venue usually isn't
   at it's fullest when you start (unless you run them all off :-)).  Save the
   real good uptempo stuff for the middle of the gig, when most people are 
   there.

   >     2. If you have multiple vocalists, try to switch off on every song

   Best idea of the bunch.  That way your singers don't wipe out their voices
   by the middle of the 1st set.

   Just my thoughts,

   -- Sam

    You act as though I wasn't serious, Brian...

    Yeah, I thought Greg was serious.  I heard a story that Alice Cooper's
    manager first heard them at some bar where they cleared out the house
    in a single set.  He begged to be their manager, figuring any band with
    that kind of power was sure to get rich, somehow...
    
    But that's not the sort of set I was looking for here.  %^)
    
    Brian, Alan, Sam, good thoughts there.  That's exactly the sort of 
    information I was looking for.  And Alan, I appreciate the set list.
    I've heard your band do its first two sets, and thought they were very
    well laid out; I'm glad you made them up, since I don't know if your 
    fellow band members read this conference.
    
    Dave

    Just looking thru this string; I used to write the set lists.  I kept a
    little pocket notebook, so I could remember what we did the nite before
    (in the same club).  We had enough material that we only repeated about
    a dozen songs over two nites.  
    
    I always wrote the set list between sets; that way I could tailor the
    set to the crowd; heavy metal, top 40, country, whatever.
    
    I agree that the time between tunes can't be short enough, the set
    should almost be a 45 minute medley.  Show bands typically *do*
    assemble there material as medleys; unfortunately, the show is usually
    the same every nite.  
    
    The first set is the toughest; Born to be Wild for a first tune for the
    bartender and waitresses doesn't cut it.  Intricate tunes that require
    concentration might be best.  
    
    If they won't dance, go into "show mode"; at least they won't leave,
    maybe.
    
    Carl

    
    	Have the drummer start the next tune as soon as the current
    	tune ends.  Have an "I'm ready" signal or stance, etc...
    	After the damn keyboard player finds the right patch ;^)
    	the whole band is ready.
    
    	Drummer does a roll and the band kicks in together.
    
    	People will keep dancing to a drum beat for a few seconds.
    
    	Tom