Well, I pretty much agree with al the above, my favorite thing is getting offstage ragged out after a long night knowing it was worth it after seeing the crowd enjoy the show and knowing we played well.
Least, well a ll of the above. Equipment lugging, wife/girlfriend drama, drunks acting stupid, bad nights overall, PA or amp problems...
One thing though, my favorite way of trying to deal with drunks and their requests, is to make sure we have NO MORE THAN 10 to 15 seconds at most between songs. I prefer more like 5 seconds when possible, they don't have time to stop you and create a distraction, yell a song 4 times because you can't hear, ask for another one if you don't know that one, try to turn it into an actual conversation...thy head for the stage and you're already into the next song...write it on a napkin or forget it. I don't even tell them that much.
That also lets you keep the audience's attention. It's easy to keep it, once you lose it, you have a hard time getting it back. 20 seconds and you can see it...they're talking to their buddies, telling jokes, making out with their dates and the band is forgotten. Jump on another song in 10 seconds or less and they don't have time for all that either. It also makes you look lots more professional and prepared..Standing around trying to decide what to play next makes you look unprofessional, unprepared and the audience is not there to sit around and watch you flip through your notebook. They want music and they want it now, or they ignore you.
I saw this bite me a couple of years ago. I played in a 2 piece, with a drummer who played electronic drums with his right hand, bass lines on a keyboard with his left. Due to that format, our song list was pretty limited, and we couldn't just try any old thing we might halfway know, like oyu can with a bigger band. Nowhere to hide if one of you makes a mistake, so it was in our better interest to go by a set list, and I finally got that point across.
We played one place where the manager told him after the 2nd set he loved us, it was sounding great and every time he looked over there we were working. He paid us $50 or $75 more than booked, still $100 or more under what most bands made. (I don't remember the actual amount)
Next time, 2 or 3 weeks later, the other guy had decided the set list "just isn't working" with no further explanation or discussion so we were back to scanning down a list and trying to decide what to play next like 99% of the bar bands I've ever seen. Halfway through the night he told me he had just talked to the manager and he had acted like he barely noticed he was even there...and we didn't make an extra penny, and had to deal with drunks and requests all night... And got fewer bookings than originally expected...
The only difference was the set list. We played well both nights, had a bigger crowd the 2nd night...the dead time between songs screwed us.
OK so I strayed way off topic, but since the drunks requesting songs thing popped up...
I'm a member of the BOMB SQUAD.
If you see me running, better catch up!
http://billy-griffis-jr.artistwebsites.com/
