Tried searching for a similar thread on this but found nothing. Kerble away.
I'm curious regarding the Premier Rock Forum's take on what an optimal set length is for your typical, average, run-of-the-mill Competent Indie Rock Band. From my experience, it seems to vary from region to region. For example, here in Milwaukee most bands i know, and most clubs, like bands to limit their sets to a half hour, give or take 5 minutes. In Madison, i'll see bands play 45-minute sets all the time. Of course, this leads to wacky scenarios where i'll see a band play an overly-long set in Milwaukee where people are looking around impatiently for them to finish, or the opposite, where, say, we play a show in Indiana somewhere and a friend comes up to us and says, "geez, you didn't play for very long." Gah!
We tend to get into brief arguments when writing out our set lists...i'll insist that an 8-song set is about a half hour/35 depending on the songs, and someone else in the band will argue that we should play seven or six songs. (Fortunately i now have our show last night as current evidence that a 7-song set for us is 25 minutes. Ha!)
I understand that it can depend on the band/style being played as well...for example, i'd feel cheated if Sonic Youth only played a half hour, but when the Buzzcocks played that long last summer at Warped Tour, i thought it was perfect.*
It's a weird tightrope to walk...obviously you don't want to overstay your welcome, and it's preferable to be efficient and make your point in a nice streamlined timeframe (heck, our abbreviated four-song set opening for Melt-Banana 5 years ago is still particularly memorable because it was an on-stage-boom-boom-boom-crazy-boom-DONE blur of awesome), but there's also something to be said for making sure people who are there to see you play don't feel cheated, or that the bar doesn't feel like they're paying you for, like, only 20 minutes of work.
So, yeah, chime in. I'm curious. What's it like in your part of the world?
*Yes, i went to Warped Tour last year. A friend had free passes through his job, and we were 10 feet from Joan Jett as she oozed sex from the stage. That is worth enduring a set from Underoath or accidentally walking near those fat fucks in Aiden as emo teen girls are lining up to be photographed with them. Wtf.
The " How Long Should Bands Play?" Debate
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