In this blog post I will be covering what you should absolutely not do onstage, giving you a couple of real world examples I have witnessed and also experienced personally. Sometimes things happen outside of your control, and that is fine. Experience is the best teacher, but there is no excuse for giving yourself a head start and knowing what you should not be doing.
Stop a Performance
I have touched briefly upon this in other blog posts, but I wanted to explain a situation I have witnessed that caused me to immediately leave the venue.
A few years ago I was at a bike event with some friends, and there was a band playing in a marquee on the other side of the field. We were gathered around a campfire when one friend suggested we go and watch the aforementioned band - I am always up for checking out some music, and I can always just come find my seat by the fire again if I need it.
How long do you think I was able to withstand watching the band in question? Genuinely, it was less than 30 seconds! The music itself was not bad, but how they presented themselves after this caused me to turn tail and run almost immediately.
Here is a paraphrased transcript of what happened:
band makes a mistake
band stops
Guitarist: Oops! That was my fault!
Singer: Hahaha! That’s just jazz!
Let us break this down. First of all, bands make mistakes due to the human nature of those involved - it happens. The worst thing you can do is just simply stop, or even worse still, fumble around making a racket and then stopping.
All of the speech above was said through the microphones, over the PA so everyone could hear. This was very unprofessional to begin with and then for the singer to compare it to jazz… I could not take it!
Consider this a masterclass for how to not present yourself onstage!
Don’t Play Beyond Your Collective Means
A while back I wrote a blog post about how you can prepare to join or start a band, that blog post can be read here. Something I touched upon briefly was being able to play within your means - everyone in the band should be able to comfortably perform the material you choose, and only in some situations is it appropriate to simplify. Also consider your stage show - if a song requires you to be pushed to your absolute limit then you are not going to be thinking about how you are presenting yourself on stage.
Learning material that is beyond what someone is used to is a great way to help them improve quickly, especially with help from other band members, but asking a beginner guitarist to learn ‘Through the Fire and Flames’ by Dragonforce is probably not going to work out very well.
Pick Shows Based on Your Music, or the Clientele
In the late 1960s there was a band called Earth - this name was also shared by a local Christian band, and they were mistakenly booked to play a church event. The former Earth band were playing blues influenced heavy metal (or what would become heavy metal) and, needless to say, their performance did not go down very well though they did not really care. Shortly after this incident, they changed their name to Black Sabbath to avoid any more confusion - yes, that Black Sabbath!
Many functional bands, those that make a living from playing covers at corporate events, weddings etc, often have large repertoire. The more experienced of those bands have a songlist of 300 or more songs, and this is always increasing as different songs become popular. One of the unique selling points these bands have is the ability to tailor their setlist as a direct result of knowing so many tunes - playing an 18th birthday party is more than likely going to require more modern songs. A 60th birthday party would perhaps require something a little more classic!
Band Communication
It is an obvious point to say that communication is key amongst band members. If you are playing live and someone makes a mistake - no voice it at that moment for all to hear! For example, during my first ever gig with White Coast Rebels my guitar slipped out of tune, but I was not able to hear the guitar well enough to immediately notice. The other guitarist/singer had the only stage monitor in front of him and heard so leaned over and whispered in my ear - quick and easy, and allowed me to rectify the situation.
If your bass player plays the wrong section and you say over the microphone “Sorry folks, John messed up again!” or even so much as grimacing when you hear a mistake, which could also happen if the mistake was yours, then it can impact the image of the band negatively. On this subject, mistakes happen but if the same thing constantly happens at the same point in the song, every time you play it, then a discussion should be had with the person responsible.
Public banter between band members can be a brilliant dimension to add to your stage performance, again depending on the crowd or situation you find yourself in. Nothing too personal otherwise you run the risk of offending the member in question.
You may be tempted to say something like “Wow! Peter really smells bad this evening. Be glad you don’t need to share a stage with him!” (definitely do not say this if it is true! Keep that conversation private). Instead, you could say something along the lines of “This next song is by Ed Sheeran which is a real treat for our bass player who has little pictures of him all over his bedroom wall!”. It is light-hearted, and you can safely avoid offending the other band member because it is… probably untrue - you never know with bass players!
Some YouTube Examples
Here are a few videos that I would recommend you watch to learn how to not operate as a musician. I have chosen to not include videos of children who are still learning, because that is not fair. Instead, I have tried to compile a selection of videos containing people who should know better.
For a performance like this, especially when the rest of the band seem competent enough, they seem to have brought a guitar player into the mix who either does not know the material, or is not yet far along enough on his guitar playing journey to play it effectively. However, the worst thing about this is that they stopped (a cardinal sin) and then they were violent towards the poor guy - not a good show!
The less said about Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich the better, but you should not be making the same mistakes in similar ways so regularly - especially when you are the drummer of the biggest metal band in the world!
There are lots of things wrong with this performance of ‘Comfortably Numb’ by Pink Floyd, and there are a few reasons why this could have happened. Perhaps they were all beginners, maybe they were asked to play this song with no preparation time (something I have had to deal with in the past) or sound issues. However, it would not be too much to expect one of the adult members in the band (there are five after all!) to have functioning ears and notice that the guitars are not in tune, and the timing is poor for all parties.
Final Thoughts
I hope that you, or someone you know, can benefit from the advice given in this blog post. Things that might seem trivial to the inexperienced can sometimes make or break a show, and be the deciding factor if the outcome is successful or not.
What we have discussed here is not exclusive to beginners though! I have seen many experienced players, or even seasoned professionals, become complacent and not care that much about their tuning, or how their tone comes across. I know of a cover band where the guitar player has a Slash-style top hat, a giant rack system next to his expensive tube amp (a Carvin similar to Steve Vai from what I remember), a pedalboard and a wireless system so he can showcase his mediocre ability directly in the faces of the audience. This is the same set-up he uses in a small pub as well as a larger stage - definitely a case of “all the gear, no idea”. I think that both the guitarist in question, and the band as a whole, would benefit more from chucking that fancy appearance out of the window and focusing more on the sound, performance and crafting a more unique setlist (oh and the bass player always seems to be wearing pyjamas… how odd!).
Perhaps you could ask your guitar teacher, or any of the teachers at the American Guitar Academy for their horror stories and how they overcame them!
Keep rocking!
Alex
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