Outraged at Gig length!

I really can't see why people think that 40mins isn't short.

Keane played for an hour when I saw them.
Stereophonics for almost two.
Red hot chili peppers for almost two.
Muse played for a good hour and three quarters.
Feeder played for around an hour and a half.
Ash (which I payed less to see) played for an hour and a half.

...the list goes on!
 
saw klaxons in birmingham with Shy Child supporting... good set, and an absolute mental crowd, as always!

Shy Child played for around 30-40 mins... fairly decent, nothing to shout about but id buy their album if i could be bothered!

Klaxons played their full album, plus a few more songs such as Bouncer... which is an awesome track..

no complains from me... maybe they thought their equipment was gonna get stolen in liverpool? god knows!

in all fairness a 40 min set from a band as big as klaxons is poor! and their all nice chaps too!
 
penski said:
but, I'm sure dave will agree here: everything goes out the window with covers bands...
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Obviously and thats because like I said in another thread - most audiences are so fickle that they only want to listen to what they know.
That even transposes to bands playing their own stuff.
I went to see three bands at The Sugarmill last year and all were playing identical music in a Slayer/The Haunted style.
You could see different sections of the crowd who were followers of the different bands being bored with each other even though the standard was quite high and all bands could have played each others material.
However, 40 min sets each was way too much and 15 mins would have done it nicely.
 
JonB said:
I really can't see why people think that 40mins isn't short.

Keane played for an hour when I saw them.
Stereophonics for almost two.
Red hot chili peppers for almost two.
Muse played for a good hour and three quarters.
Feeder played for around an hour and a half.
Ash (which I payed less to see) played for an hour and a half.

...the list goes on!
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theyre all established bands with much larger choices of tracks etc to play

the klaxons only have one album and IMO allot of it is filler
 
penski said:
I don't like to get bored at gigs...least of all by the kind of bands who bring their fans (all half-dozen of them) to a gig, take twenty minutes to set up, **** about at soundcheck then play an overly long set...not laying that accusation at you (;)) just having a rant...
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I admit while this happens in many bands cases, that it's not related to set-length??!

penski said:
is it actually a good song or is it self-indulgent tripe? got a download link?
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Well I think it's a good song, it's heavy/power metal kinda blind guardian/hammerfall style if that means anything. I don't have this particular song up but some other songs from my band are. But basically live we usually cut out the middle "slow" part which takes the song down to 10 minutes...
...

penski said:
small bands get a couple of minutes to get on and get ready then about 15 minutes to play...then about 35 mins for more established bands and 'big' bands get just under an hour..
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all I can offer is that in Aberdeen (a small city but your standards) things are a lot different.... There aren't a huge amount of bands as there would be in bigger city's, and not as much going on. And by this nature people already like the bands (or at least the genre) of music they are going to see, therefore longer sets in this case is ideal. I have never, I repeat never been to a gig in Aberdeen, or infact anywhere where the set list was under 25 minutes!! Edxpect for one band who play Napalm Death style Grindcore with 3 second songs and lots of banter.

The fact remains the 20 minutes simple isn't long enough for a metal band. In the case of say, an Indie band pumping out radio-edit tunes - ie 2.5 - 3 minutes long then, fair enough they can play an album's worth in that time.

But in the specific example of heavy metal bands, where a sub 5-minute song is a rarity then 20 minutes leaves room for 3 songs lol!!

I understand where you are coming from, do you see what I mean though?
 
In, what, 15 years of gig-going at all levels, I've only ever seen two bands play for just 15 minutes- one split up on stage and one got booed off... It doesn't make a lot of sense from a stage management point of view either, unless the bands are sharing a lot of kit, you end up spending more time shifting drumkits and cabs than you do with bands on stage, especially in small venues where access can be tricky.

But, length of gig isn't really important to me in itself, quality not quantity. I've been to gigs where anything over 30 minutes would be just about lethal. A lot of those longer sets have padding songs, slow paced songs, fannying about, 40 minutes of focused, quality music can be way more effective. Then again, a lot of bands benefit from the space to breathe and can use the extra time to their advantage.
 
Docaroo said:
I admit while this happens in many bands cases, that it's not related to set-length??!
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I find that there is a direct correlation between a bands attitude in general and the 'best' set length for them...especially in the case of smaller bands.



Well I think it's a good song, it's heavy/power metal kinda blind guardian/hammerfall style if that means anything.
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it does ;)
I don't have this particular song up but some other songs from my band are. But basically live we usually cut out the middle "slow" part which takes the song down to 10 minutes...
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even when I've been in doom bands, the longest set we did was around 30 mins...three songs and a bit of banter.

all I can offer is that in Aberdeen (a small city but your standards) things are a lot different.... There aren't a huge amount of bands as there would be in bigger city's, and not as much going on. And by this nature people already like the bands (or at least the genre) of music they are going to see, therefore longer sets in this case is ideal. I have never, I repeat never been to a gig in Aberdeen, or infact anywhere where the set list was under 25 minutes!! Edxpect for one band who play Napalm Death style Grindcore with 3 second songs and lots of banter.
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I grew up in the newcastle and edina scenes...small cities indeed. I've spent some time in notts and london which were (at the time) thriving...but all have followed the same pattern.
The fact remains the 20 minutes simple isn't long enough for a metal band. In the case of say, an Indie band pumping out radio-edit tunes - ie 2.5 - 3 minutes long then, fair enough they can play an album's worth in that time.

But in the specific example of heavy metal bands, where a sub 5-minute song is a rarity then 20 minutes leaves room for 3 songs lol!!
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I've only ever played in 'metal bands'; thrash, hardcore, doom, digi, grindcore...other than doom (30-40bpm), all have had tracks between two and five minutes...

I understand where you are coming from, do you see what I mean though?
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I do...I just have differing experiences... :)

*n
 
TBH for me this relates to something that I posted yesterday about the geography of venues bands get nowdays. And then a follow up post by Sic about the state of the music industry:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17727800

Bands reach superstardom within their first album these days, (I blame NME and the like really). This gets their tour all in a mess, they are more or less forced to play lots of venues, meaning lots of gigs and therefore get tired quickly every night.

Now I saw the Kalxons at Coachella 2 weeks ago, a 60 min set. They left Cali and then went on to finish off their domestic tour. I was knackered after that travelling and I only had to watch bands. So yes 40 mins is bad, but not the bands fault I would say....


One band I will never watch again though is Reef, I saw them just after they released Replenish and a couple of days before the Glasgow gig the singer had fallen off of his snowboard. They played for 25 mins before he hobbled off. *******.
 
dmpoole said:
The longest set I saw was Bruce Springsteen in 1980 which lasted 3.5 hours.
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My mother went on one of Springsteens 1980 tours (I don't know the year - was there more than one?) and she said it was 3.5 hours and that he was absolutely fantastic.

Very impressive for a solo act to go longer than 2, 3 hours is amazing for 3.5 is phenomenal, you gotta respect the guy for that. He's a legend and I suppose you could say he showed why on his tours.
3.5 hours a night on a tour, that's pretty extreme.
 
seen springsteen twice first was at manchester arena late 90's he played for about 2hrs 30 mins, second time was manchester cricket ground a few years ago, that was knocking on 3 or more hours.

the worst gig i been to was aerosmith who only played for 90 mins on the nine lives tour, worst thing was they played nine lives and that was about it, no classics :(
 
40 mins is shocking....

I a Bruce Springsteen fan...

I have seen him 6 times. He does'nt have support bands and plays for around 3 hours. Saw him in Norway, Sweden, BHam and Dublin and shows go on for hours.

The ticket price *may* be slightly inflated but he puts on a amazing show.. Roll on the next tour in 2k8 :)
 
NokkonWud said:
My mother went on one of Springsteens 1980 tours (I don't know the year - was there more than one?) and she said it was 3.5 hours and that he was absolutely fantastic.
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It was The River tour.
I wasn't a Springsteen fan and my mate gave me a ticket if I'd go with him.
Within minutes of him coming on it was like the second coming of Christ and you couldn't help but enjoy what the guy was doing.
He played a 90 minute set and went off for about 20 minutes.
He came back on and did another 90 minute set and went off for 15 minutes.
He then came back on and did 30 minutes of encores.
I didn't look at my watch once and I gave my mate the £5 for the ticket and £2 for petrol.
Compare that with RUSH on their 30th anniversary tour and I couldn't stop looking at my watch. They played 90 minutes too long and I couldn't wait for it to be over.

I was discussing this with my 58 year old lead guitarist last night and how long bands played for in the 60's.
In the 70's bands played for no more than 60 minutes with a couple of encores on top but I now remember an exception which was Pink Floyd on their Dark Side Of The Moon tour (more later).
In the 60's concerts had about 8 to 10 bands on and you were lucky to get 3 numbers out of each.
My mate saw bands like The Who many times but he said they were on for about 10 to 15 minutes at the most :eek:

Pink Floyd was around 1974 at Trentham Gardens and they did most of the DSOTM album, most of the new Animals album which wouldn't be released for around 2 years and did an encore of Echoes. It was also the first date I had with my future wife. My mate recorded the concert from the balcony on a reel to reel recorder (he worked there) and it became the biggest selling bootleg of all time.
 
Could be worse though.. the sets could be too long. I saw Therion at the Garage in 2004. They were booked for a 150 min headline set. Fortunately there was a power cut at about 90 mins into the set and we all had to go home. I think a lot of people were quite relieved... I don't know if I could have taken a 150 min headline slot.

Actually, come to think of it I probably wouldn't have been able to. I saw them at the Mean Fiddler a couple of months ago and I left after four songs.
 
Surely a gig being too long though is dependent on how much you like them? I could jump about listening to the Chili's, Muse or the Stereophonics until they had played their entire collections each! (Assuming they were still putting the same kind of energy into each track ;) )
 
That hits a limit too though, a lot of bands have the back catalogue to play an epic set but there comes a point where you can just get a bit oversaturated, and knackered frankly. I saw Biffy Clyro 3 nights in a row playing their first, second and third albums (one each night) plus some b-sides... It was absolutely fantastic, best run of gigs I've ever seen, but if it'd been in one night it would've just been too much.
 
Yeah I guess. I still stand with my original point though. 40 minutes, one album or not, is a tad short for me!
 
I go to see my friend's local covers band and they play for ~2 hours with a 5 minute interval. I'm up and dancing and enjoying myself for the whole time. They play an awesome set.

So to have one of my favourite bands play a 40 minute set and go.. I'd be pretty peeved tbh. Like when I goto see Tommy, he does a one and a half to two hour set by himself. I'm always 200% attentive and enjoying myself for the whole set. That's with a half an hour warm up and they're usually really good as well.

40 minutes isn't long enough for a headliner's set imo.
 
naffa said:
I go to see my friend's local covers band and they play for ~2 hours with a 5 minute interval. I'm up and dancing and enjoying myself for the whole time. They play an awesome set.
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Has Penski said earlier - the rules for covers bands goes through the window.
 
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