How often do you change your set?

[theplumber]

Been in a covers band for nearly two and a half years now. Since I joined there has been no new songs added to the set.The songs we play go down well enough but as you might imagine it's getting a bit stale. I can see that if it was a tribute act we would be stuck with more or less the same songs week in week out but it's not! My last gig with the band is this week and the drummer is off as well. So...do you add new songs now and again or stuck with the same set of songs?

[chris_b]

I play in various bands and none of them have a high turnover of songs. IME most bands have a core set that is 90% the same every gig. One or two songs might change depending on the gig but if you've chosen your set well turnover doesn't matter too much.

 

A constant stream of new songs doesn't mean a better set. It's how you play the songs and how the audience responds to the songs that matters.

 

The freshness in a set comes from a good performance by the musicians. As long as the audience likes what we are playing, I don't care what songs are in the set. What I enjoy is playing with good players.

[uk_lefty]

We try to add a new song each month, or a handful if we have a few weeks between gigs. The problem is that the second half of the gig often remains the same, I really want us to always go bigger and cycle through some of the typical closing songs. Some new songs don't last long due to indifferent crowd reaction, and some go down far better than you'd expect. 

 

One thing I found that works with covers bands is if you're getting tired of playing a certain song by a specific band but it always goes down well, why not replace it with another hit by the same band? Then you have a good level of confidence that you will make it sound great and that the audience will love it. Seems like a good compromise in a lot of covers bands. 

[Lozz196]

We (The Spacewasters) have pretty much a core set for 30 mins, we then add in if doing 40/50/60 mins and choose the songs based on the gig. One 40 min set may well be different to the next depending on the type of event we`re playing. In general I`ve always said just play your best songs irrespective but the rest of the band prefer to pick & choose and in fairness they`ve been on the psychobilly scene for years, I haven`t. 

[Dad3353]

In the twenty-odd years we've been playing (The Daub'z...), we've had four or five line-up changes, with a core of three as constants. We normally cater for an hour and a half, In that time, songs have come and gone, and some have come back. At the last count, we have a repertoire of about fifty or so (I may have forgotten a few...); some only lasted a gig or two, others are still there, from the beginning, or nearly. We often try out a new suggestion, and one in ten cut the mustard, but it's really quite rare that we change much. Every rendition has its own 'life', so we don't get bored of them really, and, to be fair, we now play out very rarely (advancing years, and no tour bus for all our gear...). Hope this helps. 

[Franticsmurf]

In my current band we have a fair turnover of songs, perhaps 50% of the set over a year. Of the 'new' ones, the majority come from the existing reservoir of tunes the band has played in some form over the years (there's a list dating back to before I was with them that runs to more than 100 songs). Because we tend to play functions, there are quite a few additions to the set from requests by the people booking us and the remainder come from within the band. There tends to be a reshuffle following the Hullabaloo festival we organise in the summer. This year, we have added 22 new songs to the set (of about 35-40 depending on the gig). Bucking the trend, only 5 were from the existing list this time. 6 were requests and new to the band and 11 were new and suggested from within the band. In addition, we rotate Christmas songs for any festive gigs we have.   

 

In my previous band, one of the reasons I left was because the set remained static and stale. It's very hard to be enthusiastic about a song with three chords that you've played for several years without any significant changes to the arrangement. 😀

Edited October 30 by Franticsmurf

[Boodang]

Two & a half years!! Two & a half months would be too long. I’m in three covers bands, in all of them the policy is A. Plenty of numbers in the bank so we can mix and match according to the audience and B. Constantly add new numbers. The later is for several reasons 1. We don’t want to bore ourselves 2. We don’t want to bore an audience who see us more than once and 3. There’s so many good songs in this world, why restrict yourself!  

[Cliff Edge]

In the duo we have some 90 songs, and a typical gig will consist of about half that number. We change the set list every gig but obviously some songs will linger across gigs. We add new songs regularly, and some don’t last long. We play covers from the 50’s up to current. 

[itu]

My tab has around 3000 - 4000 scores and this year only we have been playing +130 different songs. Audience is listening, and we need to play some customer favourites every now and then. Does not get boring.

 

(String sets twice a year.)

[neepheid]

We make an addition or two a month on average. Some then go in the spares box, and some disappear, if audiences have been indifferent.

[theplumber]

4 hours ago, Boodang said:

Two & a half years!! Two & a half months would be too long. I’m in three covers bands, in all of them the policy is A. Plenty of numbers in the bank so we can mix and match according to the audience and B. Constantly add new numbers. The later is for several reasons 1. We don’t want to bore ourselves 2. We don’t want to bore an audience who see us more than once and 3. There’s so many good songs in this world, why restrict yourself!  

Agreed!

[Rosie C]

8 hours ago, theplumber said:

So...do you add new songs now and again or stuck with the same set of songs?

 

We play a slightly different set every time - partly depending on the venue (we play pubs through to churches), whether children will be present. Adding a new tune every month. We also have summer and winter sets that we flip with the seasons. 

 

[AndyTravis]

We play the same 2 songs for the start of the set and always finish on the same…

 

We change the middle around, and with some new tunes just getting finished up - we’ll be doing it again.

 

Thats originals though - when I was in a covers band, we had a steady running order; it got to a point I could do it in my sleep (or inebriated) - auto pilot was cool for a bit…but then I got REALLY BORED.

 

 

[Dan Dare]

Virtually every gig sees changes, but they are mainly minor running order alterations, together with additions/deletions according to how long we are being asked to play for. We have more numbers ready to go than we need (unless we have to play for 3 hours plus, excluding breaks). We carry charts of things we are working on, so we can throw a few of those in if the fancy takes us. We try to add a couple of new numbers a month to the list.

Edited October 30 by Dan Dare

[tauzero]

We (doing about 20 gigs a year) haven't got a fixed target but we're probably bringing in about one number a month - we had a rather static period of three or four months due to not getting the chance to rehearse but we've got two for Friday's gig that will get their first run out. We had about three gigs where we didn't change the set at all, but we do generally examine it and revise it after each gig.

 

The previous band had certain set numbers for the start and end of sets but everything else was subject to change.

 

The club band I played with for a few years had a static set list for all those years. We'd sometimes skip a number but the order was never revised and the songs were never updated. And the guitarist, who also did singing duty when we worked as a three piece, had a book of all the songs which went onto the music stand in front of him.

[police squad]

my 80s duo has about a hundred songs. I switch them about a fair bit but since the keys player has been on shifts, we haven't learned anything new for about a year

The 80s band though has the same set from its conception 4 years ago. We've added 3 or 4 more since then and can leave or add them in.

Police tribute is pretty much the same songs learned when I started it 17 years ago. But it's more than 2 x 45 minuts sets, so can switch numbers in and out

[SimonK]

The originals band I was in a few years back had about 25 songs, and we would choose about 15 each time we played. We added new songs at a rate of a couple per year as they were written, and then recorded every now and again. We also had about 20 covers mainly of songs we liked and would drop into the set as needed. 45 songs feels like a lot but as they were developed over quite a few years and we only ever had a couple new songs at any one time. Unfortunately time moved on with that band although we still have the music on spotify which is nice.

 

I also play in church and there we have hundreds of songs, but always use chord sheets. Generally we play five or six every week, run through them on a Friday evening and then play on a Sunday morning. It's a very different sort of thing to playing a gig as there is quite a lot of making it up as you go along, albeit most of it is as easy (or difficult) as you care to make it. We're lucky at the moment that we have a group of very experienced/able musicians (one of our drummers just finished at ACM) so it works out just fine, but have been in the situation before where there were a lot of less capable people involved and that's no fun - indeed I stopped playing for a few years because of that.

[Al Krow]

Definitely a fan of trying to keep things fresh for both audiences, particularly where we have residencies, and equally importantly for us.

One thing we did a few months back was to organise all our material (currently about 80 cover songs) into 3 full sets, which allows to us to cycle through all our material and also keep everything up to gig standard.

[Al Krow]

21 hours ago, theplumber said:

Been in a covers band for nearly two and a half years now. Since I joined there has been no new songs added to the set.The songs we play go down well enough but as you might imagine it's getting a bit stale. I can see that if it was a tribute act we would be stuck with more or less the same songs week in week out but it's not! My last gig with the band is this week and the drummer is off as well. So...do you add new songs now and again or stuck with the same set of songs?

 

Is the fact that you're feeling a bit stale a key reason you're leaving your band? Hope your final gig goes well!

[theplumber]

57 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

 

Is the fact that you're feeling a bit stale a key reason you're leaving your band? Hope your final gig goes well!

Yes.. Mainly that and after trying out other venues and finding that they are not very well attended. The band spoke in the spring of this year about putting some more songs in the set and even as mentioned trying out two different sets in rotation of our stuff but it was decided that due to the singer being busy with work and having a limited vocal range ie he is struggling a bit with some of the keys and the keyboard player by his own admission not really able nor willing to take on new material due to him having difficulty remembering our current set. Not ideal but not something I can do anything about. I thought long and hard, tried to put it to one side as the guys are great and we go down well in our favourite venues. I just hit the wall during a gig a few months back and realised I was bored to bits with the whole thing. Time for a change. No hard feelings. 

[chris_b]

Seems to me you've got serious problems with the band and the set list is the least of them. You're well out of it.

 

Better luck with your next band.

[Dan Dare]

9 hours ago, theplumber said:

due to the singer being busy with work and having a limited vocal range ie he is struggling a bit with some of the keys

 

Surely you change the key to suit the singer. There are no medals for struggling to play something in the "original" or "correct" key (which may well have been changed between the writing and recording of the song to suit the singer, anyway). In my band, we do that. As she has a penchant for Eb, I carry a bass tuned a semitone down for some numbers. Everybody's voice is different.

[theplumber]

50 minutes ago, Dan Dare said:

 

Surely you change the key to suit the singer. There are no medals for struggling to play something in the "original" or "correct" key (which may well have been changed between the writing and recording of the song to suit the singer, anyway). In my band, we do that. As she has a penchant for Eb, I carry a bass tuned a semitone down for some numbers. Everybody's voice is different.

I could....the keyboard player can't/won't....

[bassbiscuits]

In the tribute band work I do we are obviously working with much the same pool of material each time, though there’s enough songs to mix up the set regularly. 

 

My other main band does a mix of originals and covers and we try to play something new at each gig to keep it fresh. We aren’t out every single weekend so that makes it feasible to do. 
 

[Al Krow]

11 hours ago, theplumber said:

I could....the keyboard player can't/won't....

 

Ah that's a shame - obviously singers'  vocal registers are going to be a pretty fixed, so they need the instrumentalists to be able to change key to accommodate, where possible. Forcing singers to sing in the wrong key can both sound worse and also be potentially damaging for their vocal chords?

 

Interestingly our keys player has the easiest job of anyone changing key - the keyboard does it on a push of a button (digital keyboard), even easier than capo for guitarist or different fretboard position for us bass players, who I feel have the most work to do with key changes!