lets the rukind.org users talk about their up and coming gigs
 #83445  by jeffm725
 
yup...I used to do a solo acoustic deal there every week for years........
 #83614  by jeffm725
 
.............
OK , here is one of the main things for us, and why I think we get younger people (who were like 3 years old when Jer died) and lots of them.

First and foremost we are a DANCE band. I said earlier we don't take the DSO approach (and some of us in the band couldn't if we tried anyway). We pretty much fore-go almost all slow songs (we do one a night, tops) and even mid tempo we limit. The youngsters who come to see us wanna boogie and we oblige. We hit them uptempo from beginning to end. Even something spacey like playing in the band we keep the jam with a strong groove.

For me personally I am a sucker for the ballads and the intricate, spacey jams which is why I have Legion of Jerry. It satisfies that jones for me to do all the Jerry ballads I love plus we even do some Dead on occasion, but only stuff Shakedown doesn't touch, like Weather report Suite or Brother Esau.
However, as you can probably guess, Legion doesn't come close to Shakedown's draw. Some of that is due to lack of dates (it is very hard to schedule around shakedowns very full schedule), but a lot of the draw difference is just philosophy. Like I said I do Legion primarily to scratch a personal itch and I am not concerned so much about draw. I would love to have a bigger crowd at Legion but not at the price of sacrificng the songs I want to play. We get some old school hard core heads at Legion that don't go as much to Shakedown gigs, and conversely we don't draw the young "party" crowd at legion gigs, that typically makes up the Shakedown scene.
Legion doesn't make money, Shakedown does....

......more to come......
 #83618  by Billbbill
 
jeffm725 wrote:.............
First and foremost we are a DANCE band.
Yea, this was something we talked up originally, but have strayed away from...probably in an attempt to add some flow, be more 'well rounded' and appeal to a variety of tastes. Unfortunately it seems such an approach is more of an option to gradually ease into the repertoire AFTER you establish yourselves as a viable draw. Horse, meet back of cart...
 #83619  by jeffm725
 
Billbbill wrote:
jeffm725 wrote:.............
First and foremost we are a DANCE band.
s. Unfortunately it seems such an approach is more of an option to gradually ease into the repertoire AFTER you establish yourselves as a viable draw.

BINGO.......you are spot on there.

Also, let me say in addition to that, you have to read your room. Straight up alcohol slinging small bars are the rooms that pretty much demand the "dance band" deal. A club like Toads place, or Harpers Ferry, or lupos or Mexicali Blues, is more of a Club/Theater type atmosphere and in such a place you can get away with a more varied showing and treat it as more of a "concert" (we always are able to play more slow stuff at toads and we actually can even slip in a drums/space sometimes).
 #83626  by tcsned
 
jeffm725 wrote:
Billbbill wrote:
jeffm725 wrote:.............
First and foremost we are a DANCE band.
s. Unfortunately it seems such an approach is more of an option to gradually ease into the repertoire AFTER you establish yourselves as a viable draw.

BINGO.......you are spot on there.

Also, let me say in addition to that, you have to read your room. Straight up alcohol slinging small bars are the rooms that pretty much demand the "dance band" deal. A club like Toads place, or Harpers Ferry, or lupos or Mexicali Blues, is more of a Club/Theater type atmosphere and in such a place you can get away with a more varied showing and treat it as more of a "concert" (we always are able to play more slow stuff at toads and we actually can even slip in a drums/space sometimes).
+1 on reading your room
We have always tried to be able to play enough non-Dead stuff or straighter stuff to make a crowd happy if that's the kind of stuff they want. If you're playing to a crowd of non-hardcore heads launching into a 30 minute Dark Star ain't gonna get you asked back. You have to make the call about how far you go. You can wind up getting schizophrenic and not knowing what kind of band you are of you take it too far but being able to play several shades of what you do to one end of the spectrum or another. We are more Dead-ish now than we used to be now that most of us aren't trying to make a living at this. We are just mostly amusing ourselves and are content to do that. But when we were at our peak, packing bars 3-4 nights a week we did a lot of Allman Bros, Band, Dylan, Little Feat, etc. a lot of danceable stuff. Wasn't as musically fun but it sure was profitable :roll: