I was recently at an open mic and I saw a couple of stand-offs between performer and audience that reminded me this might be a useful and interesting subject for the next in this series.
First off, a performance poet told a conversing pair “this isn’t a workshop. Listen or fuck off” (they promptly did fuck off– something he perceived as a victory but personally I’d see far more of a defeat) then the lead singer of a band accused the numerous people talking in the audience of ‘disrespect’ and claimed he was going to “come and talk to them” if they continued to ‘disrespect’ him.
Personally I don’t think either of these are particularly good approaches and I think, in both cases, they came out of it looking far worse than the people they were berating. Maybe if you’re a well-known act at your own headline gig and you know everyone in the audience has come to watch you, you can get away with slagging off people talking but in a pub where most of the audience have no idea who you are it’s just going to make you look like a bit silly.
Admittedly as a musician there are few things more frustrating than pouring your heart and soul into a gig only to realise people aren’t listening but openly blaming and berating the audience creates an uncomfortable atmosphere where the people involved watch you in uncomfortable silence for fear of causing further offence and even the people who weren’t talking may feel a lot less comfortable as a result of the bad atmosphere it can create.
Personally I think you have to see it as your responsibility to keep the audience interested rather than the audience’s responsibility to listen to you. You’d hope an audience would give you a fair crack of the whip and at least listen to a song or two before resuming their conversations but their responsibilities end there. Ultimately you’ve made a decision you want to perform in public but the audience doesn’t owe you anything and is in no way at all obliged to indulge your ego. They’re out to enjoy their evenings and if you’re not entertaining them it’s utterly fair enough that they entertain themselves instead.
That’s not to say it’s necessarily your fault if people aren’t listening – particularly in the early stages of performing you’ll probably accept gigs in pubs that turn out to not really be gig venues and you’ll be performing on a stage in the corner whilst everyone else just gets on with their evening because they weren’t even in the pub to listen to live music in any case. Gigs like this are incredibly depressing; it’s undoubtedly shit being a performer in that situation and personally I think it’s unfair of promoters to promote gigs that put the performers in that situation. But it’s not the audience’s fault either this has happened and it’s unfair to blame them for that – they might well have come out for a quiet drink with a friend and be as frustrated that they can’t talk because someone’s stuck a band on as you are that your playing and nobody’s listening. So, as I say, it’s not always your fault people aren’t listening but it is your responsibility to find a way to deal with it so you can feel happy about the gig and at least get something out of the evening.
So what do you do?
1. Be observant of the audience during the performance. If you act when you sense people are on the verge of losing interest it’s much easier to keep them than it is to pull them back in after the interest is gone.
2. Try and vary things, both in terms of what you do in your own set and how your set fits in with the night in general. The biggest flaw most bands have is lacking variety in their songs. The more people hear something the lesser the impact will be so if you play four similar songs in a row the first will go great, the second will go well, the third will be ok and the fourth will turn people off entirely. I used to know a band (who I won’t name but think have now split up) who I saw three or four times at once place or another and every single time I’d have this exact reaction and would start the set thinking “this is brilliant” and finish up eagerly awaiting the end of the set.
3. Focus on the person/people who are enjoying it. Find one or two people who are listening and are into what you’re doing to look at and try to connect with during the gig and take confidence from them. It’s amazing how often the surge of confidence you get from reminding yourself some people care can motivate you to a point where your performance gets more people interested too. Sometimes you’re dealt a hand where you can’t win the entire audience over and you just have to take the small victory. If you can’t even find one or two people who are interested then you need to completely reconsider your approach to which venues you’re accepting gigs at, or perhaps what you’re doing onstage.
4. Treat the gig as an experiment. Play some new songs you aren’t so sure on and get the first performances behind you. Try doing some different things musically and vocally and see if you can get more of the crowd involved. You have nothing to lose so you might as well try things and see what happens.
5. Maybe adjust your set to take out the slow songs and ones where the audience has to follow the lyrics closely. I personally tend to find fast, catchy and repetitive songs are the ones to pull people in with.
6. Even more so, play a song you’re confident on and sing your heart out on it. A passionate, intense performance can win people around. Not always but it’s been known to work.
7. It’s not a bad idea to even have a couple of covers on hand to pull out on this occasion. But make sure you choose the songs ‘cos you genuinely love them, not just ‘cos they’re crowd-pleasers. If it’s hollow and you don’t feel it, it’ll probably show.
Taken the right way, playing gigs to audiences who aren’t listening can be one of the best ways of learning your stagecraft and certainly it was those gigs that really helped me develop. It’s unpleasant at the time but once you learn how to perform these kinds of gigs well, you’ll be a much better performer as a result.
