How important is YOUR visual performance?

[Ricky 4000]

I was just wondering like.

 

I mean, does it even matter down the Dog and Duck?

 

Would you get beaten up by the punters if you bounced around a bit?

 

Or banned from the pub? Hopefully not.

 

But like, whether you do a little or a lot - people are watching you. 😬

 

lol

 

 

 

Edited August 23, 2022 by Ricky 4000
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[Skinnyman]

I think it’s important that a band put some energy into their performance - I draw the line at Shadows-style synchronised stepping but I’m all in favour of having some movement on ‘stage’.

 

Having said that, I’m an inveterate shoe-starer, largely because I’m too busy trying to remember the notes. I occasionally manage a small shuffle but that’s about it.

 

I am aware of my hypocrisy. 

[Supernaut]

@BigRedX

[BassAdder60]

 

I have to move a bit around my available space as standing still doesn’t get me in the vibe of the song or performance !

[Reggaebass]

I occasionally nod my head to the riddim, does that count 😁

[Lozz196]

For me it depends on both the size of the stage, and how many people in the band. If in a 3-piece like my last band then some form of movement is needed as the singer/guitarist was firmly rooted to his mic aside from in solos. I say some form of movement, in my head I was running all over the stage, in reality it was slow ambling that Brian The Snail from The Magic Roundabout could have equaled.

 

Bizarrely it also depends for me on instrument colour - I find if I`m playing a white bass I`m a bit more "showy" whereas with my black basses I tend to stay a bit more firmly rooted in one spot.

 

But my preference is always for the Cliff Williams style of stand at the back and only move forwards when doing backing vocals. Leave the showy stuff for the singers & guitarists.

[Newfoundfreedom]

I often look like I'm dancing a but. In reality I'm just shifting my weight from one foot to another to stop my back snapping in half. 

[Leonard Smalls]

I've always fancied doing that Dr Feelgood thing of bouncing to the front of the stage then pulling right back to the amp. But I've never been able to as I foolishly bought only straight leads.

I spose I could rig a contraption involving a slinky and an old episode of It's a Knockout...

[gjones]

It's traditional for bass players to stand rooted to the spot looking like they don't give a f*ck.

[BigRedX]

50 minutes ago, Supernaut said:

@BigRedX

If you play live and don't give the audience something interesting to watch as well as hear you might as well stick on a Spotify playlist. Doubly so if you are a covers band.

[Ed_S]

One of our guitarists is very fond of the darkened spaces in the back corners usually reserved for bassists, so my spot is downstage left, gurning and posing with the singer and lead guitarist. Lead's a lefty, so from our respective positions we can meet in the middle to do shoulder-to-shoulder posing during solos without risk of guitar entanglements. Nobody has ever told us it's not cool.

 

You can go too far, though. There's a local band with a bassist who shoots off round the venue mid-song, doing quite violent body-popping movements uncomfortably close to people. Fair play to him, I couldn't do that while playing (or at all for that matter), but on the other hand it just makes for an uncomfortable half hour of ignoring his band and hyper-vigilantly looking after your pint and your teeth lest he hit you with his rhythm stick.

[Barking Spiders]

In my 20s - 30s I only ever played in dance music bands (disco, funk, soul, house etc) so It was beholden on all band members to be able put in the moves, some choreographed others spontaneous.  Anyway when you're laying some some infectious grooves you'd have to be pretty dead from the neck down if you remained stock still

[casapete]

I think whatever you choose to do, any movement needs to look natural and reasonably

spontaneous. I don’t move around much, but when playing on larger stages there is

the need to use the space a bit, even it only involves walking around a bit. This can

often be difficult as I sing a lot of BV’s, so inevitably have to be on the mic a lot ( and

don’t fancy a headset mic thank you.)

Most important for me is looking like you are enjoying yourselves and want to be there,

whilst making eye contact with the audience a lot too. Hate to see players staring at

the floor or the neck of their guitar all the time with scant regard given to the audience.

 

My old function band were often (rightly) accused of being static. Someone in the band

knew a dance tutor so we arranged a meeting in my local village hall to see if she could

help us with our , err....presentation skills. Needless to say she couldn’t get us to loosen

up enough to change things much, and we realised the best thing to help on gigs was

a few beers before playing, although often at the cost of musical perfection.😆

[Dad3353]

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

If you play live and don't give the audience something interesting to watch as well as hear you might as well stick on a Spotify playlist. Doubly so if you are a covers band.

 

I'm not sure that that's an absolute. Most of the folk atttending our gigs know us personally, and would be very surprised if we started any out of character capers. They've come to see/hear us play the songs we do, and applaud after each. Some folk want exhibitionism, others don't appreciate it at all (it's my case, as it happens...). When I assist at a classical concert, I wouldn't be impressed by the conductor or solist prancing about. I often close my eyes, when listening to music, anyway. To me, music is essentially an audio experience. If I want to see party tricks (I don't...), I'd go to the circus. Just sayin'. 

Edited August 23, 2022 by Dad3353

[Marky L]

Yeah. Look like you're in a band and play like you're having fun. Punters do notice.

[Staggering on]

5 minutes ago, Marky L said:

Yeah. Look like you're in a band and play like you're having fun. Punters do notice.

 

Absolutely! I play DB and can't stand still when I play, I also smile at the good parts and look at the soloist if possible (I play in small jazz bands) and get many comments saying "it looks like you're having fun". In the days when I played guitar or banjo it was the same, I just can't play without "getting into it" but I don't overdo it.  

There are several members of my bands who never acknowledge the audience or even look at them and it drives me crazy. Many people have said that people hear with their ears AND their eyes and what you do while you play makes a difference and in the jazz context that includes when other members are soloing or at the end of a song.

I like to put some life in live music.😊

[Franticsmurf]

38 minutes ago, Marky L said:

Yeah. Look like you're in a band and play like you're having fun. Punters do notice.

I don't like watching bands that aren't having fun (or don't look as if they're enjoying). I always pick up on it if I'm a punter, so I always try to play like I'm having fun as a band member. I'm not known for smiling but I make an effort (not sure what it looks like out front but no one has recoiled in horror yet), pretend to talk to the singer/guitarist (and gently blow in his ear to try and put him off) and try and make eye contact with the audience. Mostly it's the drummer and me exchanging 'what are we playing next' looks as the singer goes off on his fantasy set list.

[Ed_S]

1 hour ago, Dad3353 said:

 

I'm not sure that that's an absolute. Most of the folk atttending our gigs know us personally, and would be very surprised if we started any out of character capers. They've come to see/hear us play the songs we do, and applaud after each. Some folk want exhibitionism, others don't appreciate it at all (it's my case, as it happens...). When I assist at a classical concert, I wouldn't be impressed by the conductor or solist prancing about. I often close my eyes, when listening to music, anyway. To me, music is essentially an audio experience. If I want to see party tricks (I don't...), I'd go to the circus. Just sayin'. 

 

There's definitely a genre divide to observe, isn't there. When I played in orchestras we had one very showy conductor who got away with limited on-stage antics, but it wouldn't have done for them all to act like he did. Then when I played acoustic singer-songwriter stuff in small bars and coffee houses the norm was very much to sit and play with no requirement for a visual beyond that of real live people playing things instead of a CD. There were some elements of stage-wear for those with a thread of activism running through their performance, but still nothing major. The rock and metal scene round here does demand a bit of show, unless, of course, you make it your trademark not to have any; I saw one band who turned all the stage lights off and replaced them with a single bedside lamp on top of one of the PA stacks, and they stood still throughout their set. It was different, so still created an atmosphere.

 

2 minutes ago, Franticsmurf said:

I don't like watching bands that aren't having fun (or don't look as if they're enjoying). I always pick up on it if I'm a punter, so I always try to play like I'm having fun as a band member. I'm not known for smiling but I make an effort (not sure what it looks like out front but no one has recoiled in horror yet), pretend to talk to the singer/guitarist (and gently blow in his ear to try and put him off) and try and make eye contact with the audience. Mostly it's the drummer and me exchanging 'what are we playing next' looks as the singer goes off on his fantasy set list.

 

Totally the right approach, I reckon. For me as a punter it's all about being able to get 'in the moment', for want of a better term. Like when you're watching telly and you only really notice that you've zoned out everything else that's not on the screen when somebody knocks at the door, punctures the little bubble, and the telly that was your entire world suddenly becomes really small because now you're aware of the room. Being at a really good rock show should be like that, so on stage I try to add a bit of the sort of thing that would help me to engage to that degree were I in the audience.

[skankdelvar]

I suppose one's visual performance is dependent on genre, context and what the front-man wants:

 

* Hurtling around the stage and jumping off the drum riser would (mostly) be wrong for folk, jazz, acoustic but right for some genres.

 

* What might look good on a big stage might look silly in a pub. And vice-versa.

 

* If one positioned oneself behind James Brown or Adele and proceeded to pull bass faces and whirl like a dervish one would probably be fired on the spot.

[joeystrange]

4 hours ago, BigRedX said:

If you play live and don't give the audience something interesting to watch as well as hear you might as well stick on a Spotify playlist. Doubly so if you are a covers band.

Fully agree with this.

 

Plus it doesn’t matter where you’re playing or to how many people. Whether it’s 5 people or 5000 people if they’ve taken the time and/or paid money to see you then they deserve the same show.

 

I’ve always seen this as as a good marker between pro bands (even if they’re only ‘pro’ in attitude) and amateurs.

[Lozz196]

3 minutes ago, joeystrange said:

Fully agree with this.

 

Plus it doesn’t matter where you’re playing or to how many people. Whether it’s 5 people or 5000 people if they’ve taken the time and/or paid money to see you then they deserve the same show.

 

I’ve always seen this as as a good marker between pro bands (even if they’re only ‘pro’ in attitude) and amateurs.

Definitely, size of the audience should have no bearings on the amount of effort put in to a performance.

[King Tut]

Play every gig like it’s Wembley Stadium. We have a right laugh on stage and we all look like we’re enjoying ourselves. We’re entertainers and we like to entertain! I think eye contact with the audience is important too. Acknowledge someone, even just a wink or a nod, and they’ll remember you. I usually take some ibuprofen before I go on though to help with the knees and back!!!

Edited August 23, 2022 by King Tut

[fretmeister]

If I'm playing in my jazz big band... then there can be 25 of us and there's very little room to tart about.

 

If it's a rock gig - then I'm all over the place apart from when I'm actually singing.

For a little while I had a radio unit for both my bass and for a headset mic for backing vocals and I WAS that idiot who would go to the bar during a song.

 

Top Tip - only do that with a headless guitar as otherwise the comedians in the crowd will flip with your tuning on the way past.

[TimR]

There's probably too much going on in that video. The girls syncro and lead singer is great. But there's loads of other stuff going on.

 

I played in a big Soul band for a few years, probably loads of us did just after the Comitments film came out. You couldn't move for bands playing that stuff. 

 

Guess it depends where you want the focus. Certainly on instrument breaks you want the soloist to be visible and probably move a lot.

 

As has been said, it's a balance and genre dependent. 

 

The lead singer needs to capture people's attention that's for certain, regardless of genre, but capturing attention can be done in many ways, some more subtle than others. 

 

 

Last week, we played our 3rd or 4th proper gig since lockdown ended. No matter how much you rehearse you need to gig before you know that you know the material properly. I tried moving around and smiling but mainly look like I'm concentrating far too hard in the photos taken during songs we haven't been playing that long. 

[Richard R]

I play in church, and while looking like you enjoy it is definitely a good thing, it's not a performance stage. The job of the band is to lead the congregation singing, so running around or windmilling would be frowned upon. In fact the traditional bass spot in my church happens to be tucked behind a pillar.

 

That said, I watched The Blues Brothers last night and would love to play in that church band! 

 

( I also find it great that despite the preaching and shouting, the bass player stands like a statue until 1:25 when the band kicks in, then he gets groovy 🙃)

 

 

Edited August 23, 2022 by Richard R
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