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The same setlist every night?

deebster

deebster

Half Man Half Biscuit
At a recent gig I went to bar a couple of invited requests the setlist was exactly the same as it was at one a few days previously I'd heard a recording of. It was a good gig but knowing which songs were coming up took the edge off it a bit if I'm honest. Suppose it serves me right but it got me thinking.

Not being a musician I surely do not appreciate the effort involved in rehearsing lots of songs from which to build varying sets, but if it was me up there on stage I think I'd get bored pretty quickly playing exactly the same songs each night, especially if I had a decent back catalogue to choose from.

What say you?

When I was 17 I went to see Sting (look, I was young alright) and enjoyed it so went along the next night, but he did exactly the same set, including much of the between-song talk. So you can blame him for this thread.
 
As Crowded House are touring just now Neil Finn would be an example of someone who can change day to day. Springsteen very famously but few bands really have the repertoire...
 
The bigger/older the band the harder it will be, especially if they are using and session musos etc in the band. Easy for a new band; you play all your stuff and maybe hold two back for an encore. If you are the Rolling Stones I bet you can’t even remember the names of all your songs, let alone how to play them. It’s very different to say jazz as it needs to be rehearsed and really tight. Very few rock bands this side of say the Grateful Dead can really create on the fly.
 
I would suppose a gig, like an album, can have a natural flow emotionally.

Bring em up, knock them down - repeat.

Like a 7 course meal, things have an order.

(saying that, when in a restaurant I have been known to just order 3 starters, all to arrive at the same time. :cool: )
 
Dylan in the 80’s. Notoriously constantly strayed from the rehearsed set list, launching into completely different songs and expecting his band to keep up.
 
As a teenager I once collected half a dozen Metallica bootlegs from the same tour. Absolutely identical even to the between song patter!
 
paulfromcamden said:
As a teenager I once collected half a dozen Metallica bootlegs from the same tour. Absolutely identical even to the between song patter!
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With a band like that with complex lighting, pyrotechnics etc very good chance they are actually playing to a click track/computer for sync etc. It is very much a show, like seeing Cats or whatever at the West End. Ironically the smaller the band and venue the more ability to improvise and go with the audience mood. Big shows will always be really rigid as there are so many people off-stage working to a tightly defined script. To be honest it is one reason I really don’t like stadium rock gigs. I’d have loved to see Prince at his Sign Of The Times peak, but I can’t really think of anyone else.
 
vince rocker said:
According to Deadbase the Grateful Dead played 2318 shows, 36504 songs, 480 different songs. They never repeated a setlist!
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Sonic Youth are listed as having played 510 different songs - though there are a handful of 'untitled' and 'unknown's in there!

No idea of they ever repeated setlists but my gut feel is if they did it was fairly infrequently (apart from stuff like when they played Daydream Nation from start to finish). Clicking through the collected setlists they seem to vary things even when very obviously touring a new allbum.

Nerdy SY stats:
http://www.sonicyouth.com/mustang/cc/tourstats.html
http://www.sonicyouth.com/mustang/cc/songstats.html
http://www.sonicyouth.com/mustang/index2.html
 
I’d expect Sonic Youth to be pretty free and fluid in every respect, they are closer to a jazz mindset in many ways. I’ve only seen them once, but they certainly took the songs I knew in different directions and seemed to interact with the audience a lot.
 
So it can be done, and now I understand more why the Dead and Springsteen have such a live following. Good on em, just a shame they're not my thing.

The gig I was at was Laura Veirs. Her and an acoustic guitar, upstairs in a pub, postponed since October and according to the recording of the opening night her first tour in 3 years.

God, I know this sounds like a moan, but I'm struggling to not only reconcile the setlist but also the time played, which was a little over an hour. Many artists say that playing live is what they really enjoy best (which stands to reason), so after so long away and with nobody else in the band to think of am I out of step also wondering why the set was quite short? OK, it's not The Jesus & Mary Chain 1985 but an hour and a half is what I usually go in expecting.

Just for the record I love her music, thanked her after the show as she signed a couple of LPs and would happily do it all again. Just curious, that's all.
 
Van Morrison 'don't have hits, as all they want to hear is your f-ing hits'
David Crosby slagging off Eagles for sounding just like the record when live.
I guess it depends on how good you are as a player.
In contrast, I saw Santana play the set-up, then a 3+hour concert, and last thing I heard was 'let's go to the bar and play some more'
Pat Metheny played such tours that he didn't have a house-and once got off a plane -no guitar, so borrowed one to immediately go and record......
 
In 1990 Butch Hancock played six nights straight and didn’t repeat a song (140 songs). Only released on cassette. I saw a copy on a particular auction site a year or 2 ago and just couldn’t justify the (I think) ~$250 for it.

https://www.discogs.com/release/2674917-Butch-Hancock-No-2-Alike

Saw Dave Alvin once in St Louis, Mo. in July. A major thunderstorm came through and knocked out power. It was hot and humid in this little hole in the wall place with no AC and no cold beverages. No lights so they put out a ton of candles.

He finally showed up and decided to go ahead. They through out the set list and played a couple of hours of only requests. He played acoustic guitar. They found an acoustic upright bass for the bass guitar player and a child’s toy piano for the keyboardist - he held it with one hand and played with the other. I can’t remember what the drummer did.

It was straight up amazing. He and the band were completely unfazed by the situation.
 
vince rocker said:
I have occasionally wondered about this. Did they have sequencers ready set up, and how did they sync everything?
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The Moog 960s could all be run off the same clock pulse but as a general rule, one member ran their sequencer(s) at any given time (usually Chris) and everyone played along. What might sound like a second sequence was usually manually played and repeated. If you don't have any bootlegs "Monolight" or "Cherokee" lane from "Encore" are as close to the real live sound as you'll get on any official Virgin release.
 
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