Set List and Notes from D-Note: Evolution of the Performing Band

Set list and thoughts from D Note in Arvada 2-12-11

The Valley
Come Together
Clam Slam
Hey Jane
It Won’t Eat *
Best I Can
Loving Cup
Purple Rain

Notes:
* first time played

Evolution of the Performing Band

Last night’s one-hour set at the D Note in Arvada felt good. Everyone agreed it worked great.

After a super-quick setup, Ethan worked the soundboard running line checks. It’s always a rough-and-tumble thing to set line levels. You’ve got to take the time to do it right, or the sound ends up being a mess. Nonetheless many times, such as last night, the room is full of expectant people listening to the bass drum and the snare drum and the bass cab and each individual vocal microphone. It’s a lot to ask the crowd to sit through too much of that.

Last night, we buzzed through the line checks quickly, and got into the performance. Sound levels on stage felt good. We heard later that sound levels in the house felt good, and you could hear every instrument, and especially Kyle’s vocals, clearly. Way to go E!

We knew we had just a one-hour set, and two other bands were coming after us. So we went into the set with a plan to move efficiently from one song to the next – no down time. Geoff picked that up quick after The Valley; even while Ethan did some minor tweaking to stage levels, Geoff laid down the opening riff of Come Together, and the audience had something to plug into. It worked great, and we were off and running. Each of our transitions were short and well-timed. Each of the song performances was tight and polished. I could read the energy coming off of Geoff and BJ, and hear my keyboards clearly to respond with my own energy. Good stuff!

After the show, tear down was efficient and I don’t think we held up the other band getting their show rolling. It’s important to maintain peace between the bands…

After the show, we always check with each other about how it felt. Every one of us felt the set was smooth and tight, and stayed very much in the pocket.

It’s interesting to observe what “in the pocket” means. It means we played a strong show. The audience loved it. The energy stayed up and never got lost even with songs that had a slower pace. (It Won’t Eat and Best I Can, for example, got as strong a crowd reaction as Come Together and Clam Slam.) But we also didn’t take any risks on stage last night. The crowd would never know that, but we certainly did.

I watched the Decemberists at the Boulder Theater last week and absolutely loved their live show. Very tight, very polished, and such a rich mixture of sounds, melodies, rhythms, tones, lyrics. However as a musician watching other musicians, I also got the sense that they had done exactly the same thing a dozen times in a row. It’s not that they didn’t love what they were doing – they did – however it appeared to me while they were performing very technical stuff and doing it very well, I picked up a vibe that this was just another show. Nothing special or unusual. Other than changing the set list from night to night, every show is the same.

That’s kind of what it felt like for Zen Mustache last night. We could play that same set, with some variation of the song choices, night after night, and I bet audiences would love listening to it. We could write new material and add songs to the mix over time. But the way we played them had something missing. Something the listeners would never see or understand. Risk. We didn’t risk anything on stage last night, and because we have taken risks on stage in the past, that felt absent to me.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to take risks on songs that could train wreck us. No way. We only put stuff on stage that’s polished and ready to go. But when the time comes, and we feel it between us, everyone in the band knows we’re going to jump off the cliff and see what happens. To do so requires experience, good judgment, and trust. We also have to have a game plan for recovering gracefully if that jump takes a bad turn.

I perceive a band like Phish does this every night they’re on stage. Some nights there’s an incredible payoff, for the band and for the audience. Other nights, it just never clicks and while they don’t train wreck they also don’t reach those high moments. But you can’t reach the high moments without taking the risk, and it’s so interesting to watch them take the plunge night after night.

Thus the title of this post – the evolution of the performing band. Who are we? Who do we want to be? The reason to perform music is to draw people together to share in the joy of music. That joy means different things to different people. It’s an open question in my mind, and one I’m ready to engage.

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