Unless you know
someone, you have to work very hard to get booked at
the larger local venues, and it's a whole different
ballgame. They expect you to vigorously promote your
show, and the success of your first show determines
whether you'll be asked to play there again. Although
a financial success is good for the venue, they'll
also factor in the behaviour and attitude of the
bands and the crowd when making a decision. These
venues have an enormous amount of pride in themselves
and often treat fans of all ages like children, like
this is the first show they've ever been to and they
have to be told how to behave. This usually causes
the fans to rebel or act like children or develop a
dislike or hatred for the venue. Your performance and
behaviour onstage determines how the crowd will
behave once they've entered the venue.
When
you're playing to a larger crowd, there will
definitely be people seeing you for the first time.
Media critics and music industry professionals are
likely to be watching you, and this may be their
first impression of you. Although it's assumed that
every one of your die-hard fans will be there, it's
very important that you perform as if no one in the
audience has ever seen or heard you before. If you
put on a show for your friends and family, those
people that sing along with all your songs and are
ecstatic when you talk about them from the stage, you
immediately distance yourselves from people who are
seeing you for the first time.
The regular Joe in the crowd feels left out because
he doesn't know the words to your songs and he
doesn't know who these people are you're talking
about onstage and you're not giving him any
information that would help him to understand your
band or your fans - he feels like someone who was
invited to a party where he didn't know anyone but
everyone else knew each other, everyone else had a
great time, he had a lousy time. The venue doesn't
like you inviting or pulling your friends onstage and
having to monitor and discipline your fans when they
get out of hand, and they sense the disapproval or
disappointment of the regular Joe's who aren't having
a good time. Music industry folk see that you're only
playing to your die-hard fans and, if your show
includes too much banter and fooling around with
those fans, may decide that you interact with the
crowd so much because your music stinks.
You may argue that internationally famous bands
interact with the audience, so it shouldn't be that
tragic for your band to do it. Well, there's a
difference there. When U2 first started touring the
United States, they basically just played their
music, maybe explaining the meaning of a song or two,
understanding that a lot of the crowd wasn't familiar
with them. The last time they played St. Louis, they
pulled someone from the crowd to play guitar with
them. They have actually stopped singing and playing
and left the stage to let the audience continue
singing a song. They have pulled girls onstage to
dance. They can pull this stuff off for two reasons:
1) they don't know the people they are interacting
with, and 2) everyone in the crowd paid a lot of
money to see them because they know all their songs
and feel a kinship with the band.
Unless you're sure that everyone in the audience has
come to a show to see your band, it's a bad idea to
put on a show for your fans. Pulling someone you
don't know onstage is acceptable - pulling someone
you know onstage is rude. Friends and family of
successful touring bands stay backstage.
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