Premier Rock Forum

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.

Depends on the length of their songs. If it's a band who plays 20-minute songs, three songs would be about 60 minutes. Keep that in mind. I mean, I like long songs by a few bands, but if it's some run-of-the-mill post-rock group playing 3-5 songs, fuck that shit.

But if it's a band that plays three minute songs, fast, punk rock or whatever, 15-25 minutes is good enough. Opening bands are usually there just to warm people up. And if you play with a band like Sonic Youth, I would venture to guess most people don't give a flying fuck from a dead midget about your band.

When you headline, that's when you play at length. Give a good show but not a LONG show when you're third or fourth on the bill. Second from the top can kind of act like a headliner.

35 minutes, unless you're awesome, then 40-45.

depends on number of bands on the bill, too. four bands or more, nobody should go longer than 40 minutes. two bands only, go ahead and play for an hour if you rule and your songs are interesting enough and different enough from each other that folks won't get bored.

depends on whether or not the band is boring or not.
A boring run of the mill nothing special indie rock band, I wish they'd only play one song and leave most of the time.
An interesting band with personality who's got the crowd into it? Shit, let them go an hour.

Nothing worse than when an opening band doesn't acknowledge they are obviously boring the shit out of the crowd and keep going and going like it isn't happening. Horrible.

Marsupialized wrote:Nothing worse than when an opening band doesn't acknowledge they are obviously boring the shit out of the crowd and keep going and going like it isn't happening. Horrible.

There's definitely something to be said for being able to feel out how the set's flowing in the moment. I know we've cut songs and shortened up the set mid-performance before because we knew it was time to get off stage (although if the crowd's not just bored but actively pissed, we've been known to stretch shit out on purpose. Hee).

Bands should play for exactly as long as they feel like playing. As long as it doesn't interrupt the sets being played by the other bands, then they should play for however long or short as they want.

If the audience doesn't like it, too bad.

35-45 minutes is just about right for like, small venues, when several bands play. if you are like a big band and are playing solo, expect about 1 hour or more.
here, some killer rock bands tend to overplay, so you tend to listen to 15 fast-as-fuck songs for like 1 hour. ridiculously boring and, by the half of the set, the 'oh we´re rocking out!!!' effect just fades away cuz the repetition..

DrAwkward wrote:There's definitely something to be said for being able to feel out how the set's flowing in the moment.

That's basically what I was going to say. So many reviews I read and shows I've been to, the common positive statement is "wow they really had stage presence" followed by remarks on how the band interacts with and responds to the general mood of the audience and the night itself.

One time I saw DRI, the crowd was kind of weak and unresponsive, but the bass player kept yelling "you guys are fucking crazy!" Like he could reverse-engineer a good mood or something. It didn't do a goddamn thing. It was really uncomfortable.

I agree with Scott. Leave them wanting, even if the wanting is for you to never play again.

When I saw Kris Kristofferson last weekend he played for like 1hr 45. The crowd would have been happy with another hour on top of that, but I don't think he was physically capable of it.

It's got to be a combination of how long the band wants to play and how much the audience wants to hear. Having said that it's better to leave 'em wanting more rather than boring them to tears with an over-long set of crap.