Advice to Bands

This is some advice I sent in an email out to a guy whose son I saw play on Friday night:

" Before going on stage send one member to speak to the soundman, and tell him that you're about to go on, and that you'll put a thumbs up once you're all ready to play. Then, all walk on stage, quickly check everything is working - and I mean very quickly, one quick strum of a guitar and tapping the mic is enough - do not play anything else! Once you know everything is working fine, put the thumbs up and the soundman will bring the music down. The quickly introduce the band and the first song and get straight into it.

Plan the set all the way through, including points when you're going to talk, and play it all the way through in order at least 3 times every practice. This way you'll always know what song is next.

Work on playing some songs back to back with no, or very little pause.

Make sure you say the band name very clearly at least three times during the set, once at the start, once in the middle and once at the end. Don't worry about mentioning the myspace/facebook everyone will already assume you're on there.

Prepare a good joke, so if you need to fill some time between songs you've got something to rely on. Talk slowly and clearly and with confidence, if you're not sure what you're saying, don't say anything!

Make sure you're enjoying yourself on stage, and work on movement. If you look bored, the audience will be! Try to get as involved as possible. Watch videos of other bands and watch what they do onstage, and try to emulate that. Practice this at rehearsals every time you play through the set. The singer especially needs to be strutting and moving a lot more, he's the focus and centre of the band and should act it.

As for getting better gigs, play every rubbish gig that comes along, but play everyone with passion and enthusiasm. Even if it's just to the same friends and family, and the other bands, if you can impress them then do it! There's no such thing as a pointless gig. Work on playing a seamless set with loads of confidence.


As for getting bigger shows in the future, make sure the boys have got that professional edge, then using your PR email address start emailing promoters and other bands. Act as though you are a booking agent, this will make the band seem more professional and will give a good impression to promoters. Find bands that are similar that are playing in the next 3 months or so and ask if they have arranged support for those bands. If there are slots available put the boys forward to play the shows.

If someone else in charge of booking, then get them to set up a new email address especially for it (but forwarded to their normal email address so they don't miss the replies) As a promoter, getting an email from joey-182@hotmail.com asking if his band can have a gig is not a good start!

If the boys are really serious about the band, get a good logo designed and have stickers made up - lots of them! then give them out and stick them everywhere! Give them to friends, and hand them out at every show, and just stick them everywhere. The band members should always have stickers on them, to stick everywhere they go, and to hand out to people they meet.

Finally, get a website and email server. This can be a total pain in the ass, but it's worth it! Using a tumblr.com blog page, you don't have to worry about designing a page, and you can have all the info you need on there. Then using Godaddy hosting, get a domain name and email address package. Having a .com really makes the band look a lot more professional, as does sending emails from that domain."