It’s fairly straightforward, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have commentary. As my kids tell me, I am nothing if not overly explanatory. 

Create a stage. You’re probably not going to have a raised platform or any kind of physical distinction between the “stage,” the place you’re supposed to set up and play, and the rest of the restaurant, bar, whatever. I mean, there might be. But prepare for there not to be. Prepare to show up and for everything to go wrong; this is not bad advice for life in general, if I may be a little coldly clear-eyed this new January. I’ve found it helps if I try to establish a general perimeter, a defensible space, between the band and the audience. Usually this is done with the monitors and the mic stands. I also use a power cord as a kind of invisible fence. Unfortunately, this doesn’t actually shock any perpetrators, but hope springs eternal. This is all mostly theater, albeit theater of a practical sort. But it’s still a show, and anything that even gestures toward a proscenium interruption in the fern bar is an advantage. Perhaps I’m being too whimsical here. Plus the monitor wedges act like a small guardrail against falling drunks. 

Don’t drink. But do eat. Not too much. Mostly salads. Try to stay under your comped limit. You think you can just eat after, but everyone will be a lot less annoying along the way if you have half a meal beforehand. Please, learn from my mistakes. 

Do bring a water bottle. Borrow one from your wife or teen. You know they have them, with the overly complex lid-top-straw situation. To me the metal water bottle trend is less a trend and more an example of mass hysteria, or maybe I just resent how my house has turned into a junk drawer for hydration. But nevertheless, you can turn this vicious foolishness into some easy mid-gig refreshment. Bonus: it has a close-able lid, which is handy if you, like me, are a person who spills every drink he ever touches, every drink he thinks of touching. I am particularly adept at spilling drinks on everyone’s amplification equipment. You’re welcome.

75 minutes on the front, 45 on the back. You need to give yourself enough time set up, but not too much time. It all depends on what you are responsible for. I admit to struggling with the time question. In one band, where I only assist with unloading the PA, they want me to get there 90 minutes early, even 120 minutes early. When I acquiesce, we all sit around staring at each other for the last half hour before downbeat. Yes, I enjoy the hang. But the hang here is clouded by time wasted. For a different band, the one where I bring, set up, and run the PA, I tried to stick to 60 minutes before the gig max, in which I’d set up the PA, the guitar rig, the mics, etc. This turned out to be too tight. It’s like leaving for the airport with just enough time; you can make it if you catch all the lights, etc. I am trying to change this habit and now I’m shooting for 75 minutes before showtime. This allows me to hit some traffic during set up and prevents me from lapsing into a panic. Also, I am able to have friendly side conversations with bandmates while setting up rather than the tight-lipped, avoidant sprint I was doing. I still dream of the 60 minute set up though, something about the evenness of that hour. 

Afterward, I try to bag it up in 45 minutes. Here you really suffer the consequences of all the stuff you brought. At the beginning of the gig, you set up your stuff. At the end of the gig, you tear down your shit. 45 is the goal. Yes, sometimes I want to hang afterward. But sometimes I want to go home. And the staff in the restaurant want you to go home, so they can go home. But that can’t happen until they clear the tables and mop the floor where you’re standing, so get moving. 

To do this it’s important to invoke the Spaceballs rule: take only what you need to survive. Of course, survival here becomes highly variable. And really the rule is more like: take whatever you are willing to carry. If you have help, then everything changes. But I have no help, and I am increasingly willing to carry less and less. Sometimes, to frighten myself, I go on keyboard forums (don’t go on forums) and look at everyone’s keyboard rigs. With the caveat that forums are typically made up of self-selecting nerds dorking out for clout, these rigs are terrifying, like the engine room on the Death Star. Remember: every cord is a failure waiting to happen.¹

Other arbitrary but useful limitations: drummers should have only two cymbals max in addition to their hi-hats and at most a four-piece kit. But to be honest, they can get by with one tom and one cymbal. Guitar players should play through a Blues Junior and no pedals for a year straight. Practice skill acquisition through device deprivation. Keyboard players don’t need 88 keys on their board and rarely need more than one board, and they should leave the laptop at home. It’s a job but it’s not an office. Singers should show up on time and be responsible for the PA or at least get really good at rolling cords. What usually creates stage volume problems are electric guitar, crash cymbals, and the snare drum. You don’t need to solve this problem by using in-ear monitors. You solve it by turning down. Bass players: no one wants to hear your slapping or your popping. If you sound like Seinfeld, you don’t get called again. Second guitar players: do not exist in this band. Horn players: no pay until all the gear’s away. 

Of course the problem with horn players is that they know they’re precious unicorns and can gallop away at my Grumpelstiltskin suggestions. 

Don’t go IMAX. Last night the gig was an acoustic duo in a restaurant, two guitars, two singers. In the back room, there was a corporate holiday party with a DJ. We could feel the thump through the closed doors. Let me see that tootsie roll! We couldn’t compete. We just played our Neil Young tunes to our 12 patrons and had a nice little time. There wasn’t any use getting offended by the juxtaposition. This is just the way of the world. But you can see how some bands want to go IMAX, want to surround the world. This is a false god. You’re never going to sound like the record. It’s more fun for you to sound like human beings playing instruments with their hands and feet. I think the primary charm of the NPR Tiny Desk Concert is that it’s the anti-Sphere. There’s no light show, no choreo, no subwoofers. It’s extremely limited. It’s not “authentic” (the other false god). All performances are acts. It’s just a less cliched performance. We’ve all seen the version with the dancing girls already. Over the holiday I saw a live clip of Shania Twain. She was surrounded by young men dancing shirtless in tuxedo tails. Whatever twinkcake allure this might have provided seemed undercut by the sheer predictability of it all. (Dancing: almost always overrated.) When in doubt, underdo it. It’s easier. It’s more interesting. And if you’re quieter, people have to pay attention. 

On break, find somewhere to go. It gives you a break. It gives the audience a break. It structures the show. In one band I play in, the leader likes to go all out the entire time, just one relentless marathon of music. This challenges the human bladder and human patience. There should be peaks and valleys. Always leave them wanting more. Also, if you’re going to eat on break, do it off stage and out of sight. You’re part of the help. 

Minimize patter, murder dead air. Every time I have tried to be amusing with my in-between song chatter, I come across like an idiot, like someone walking down the street without pants, selling blowtorches. The patrons are not expecting my feeble, impromptu attempts at humor. I’m just making them self-conscious and uncomfortable. It’s better to stick to “this song is by . . .” or “on bass tonight we have . . .” type of commentary. Remember, they are primarily drinking, not listening. Don’t mess up the flow of energy. 

To help, either have a song list or know the available tunes well enough so that you can keep things moving when you’re not on break. It’s annoying to watch a group of musicians sit around playing the what do you wanna play game in between each song. And it’s enervating to be on the bandstand with same, at least for those of us who are uptight and care too much. It’s a show. Get on with it. 

1. Lately guitar players have been imitating keyboard players, turning their instruments into synths with all those knobs on the floor. I know it’s fun to make your guitar sound like a vacuum cleaner, but that’s too much to carry. It’s too much to set up. Plus, you don’t need that many sounds. I think aside from vanity one of the reasons people bring all this stuff is the idea of getting their most pristine sound and also the (contradictory) idea of getting the various “sounds” you need to cover the material. I can understand wanting to get a pristine sound in an environment like the recording studio or your home, where you can reasonably control all the variables. But you can’t do that on a gig. Playing music live is like trying to self-checkout your groceries while someone shoots tennis balls at your face. It’s highly contingent on innumerable unknowns. 

And as far as getting the appropriate sounds, I don’t think you can do it and I don’t think you should try. A guitar player needs 2-3 sounds a night tops, a regular sound, a lead sound for solos, maybe an overdriven sound. And really, these are all just different gain levels of the same sound. We don’t ask trumpet players to have different sounds other than what they can produce on the instrument with their technique. Plus the guitar pedals start to work on a player like prescription drugs on the body. You always need to add another one to mitigate the side effects of a previous one. Obviously if you’re playing something like metal, I have no idea what to tell you. That music frightens me and I avoid it. I’m talking about normal music, music that people want to hear in public, while they try to politely signal to their fellow patrons that they’re down-to-clown after closing.