encores C/D?

I saw Clinic last night - who was worthy of an encore, because it was a great show .. but the walk off, walk back on thing is a joke.. Especially because the crowd, although they wanted more songs, weren't really cheering that enthusiastically..

I do, however, sometimes like the encore ritual .. for instance, Yo La Tengo plays requests in the encores .. and it's usually stuff that's incongruous with the rest of the show.. So it's like the E.P., bonus concert.

The Fall did encores last time I saw them, but they were only off stage for about 20 seconds..

I've seen Ween do TWO encores at about 30 minutes each once. They were so fucking wasted, and sounded so good in those encores. The second one, Mickey/Dean came out with a beer in each hand and had a stage dood put his guitar on him.

I've seen 4/5 of SFA head off stage, leaving the last Animal to orchestrate a one-man house set. Fifteen minutes later the rest of the band re-emerges wearing their furry suits. Same idea as an encore, minus the lack of music. Plus Sasquatch suits!

If I had a band, then 3 songs from the end I'd stop, hold up a big sign that says "ENCORE" for a few seconds, and then play the rest of the songs.

Isn't the encore break just a good time for the band to take a piss/run backstage/take a few minutes to sit down/change costume/towel down?

I actually have friends who would leave the gig before the 'encore' because it feels so worthless.

The Manics didn't used to do encores while Ritchie was with them, not that I remember, anyway.

Actually that's the worst idea ever, I wouldn't do that.

Ween's encores are the best, because they're usually at least 4 songs, sometimes 5, and the last song is always 20-30 minutes long, so you usually get at least 45 extra minutes out of them.

Alex OTM. What's wrong with 35 minutes, all the hits, and get off?

Or in Ween's case, 10 minutes, all the hits...

Though they are fat, bloated, drug-addled satanist rednecks, Deicide have the scruples of a vat of monks when it comes to NEVER PLAYING
ENCORES, no matter how many bloody-nosed miscreants in the moshpit are screaming and swearing after the set.

The Wedding Present -- who don't match the Deicide description much otherwise -- were similarly straightforward on that point. Dave Gedge would always announce it from the stage, they'd play a final song, that was it.

Oh come on, that's a great set time for punk rock and bands with one or two album catalogs, but that's no good for a majority of artists, especially those of whom charge more than $10 for a ticket. Most people like to get their money's worth, you know. That's why 80-120 minutes is a good length for a show. If you want the band to get off the stage so badly, why did you ever buy the tickets to begin with?

Don't you feel a bit gypped if a band refuses to play an encore?

But that shouldn't be the way! That is why they are so dud. You should be elated that they do, not pissed off when they don't.

Last time I saw (smog) he didn't do an encore. He played for about an hour and a half, then asked people to shout out any other songs they wanted him to do. I don't think he could be arsed leaving the stage. That was classic.

I think that for me, the thing I really want is a sense of closure to the show. I really hate when the band just up and leaves, and a set ends without feeling like anything has come to a conclusion. This goes for main sets as well as encores. It's especially awful when the ending seems random and the band doesn't even say goodbye/talk to the audience - that's the duddest of the dud. Encores at least force the impression that "oh, it's winding up now, it's almost over." It keeps folks from leaving the stage too abruptly.

Speak for yourself, ADD boy.

The UK gig experience often involves standing in a dark venue drinking really expensive beer waiting ages for the band to come on and then realising an hour in that you don't feel much better off now that the band are on. I don't know why more people don't stick two bands on as part of a clubnight so people already feel drunk/happy/receptive/dancing by the time the first band's on.

Encores seem to be largely something bands do just because everybody else does, without wondering whether they might in fact be a stupid charade most of the time. I don't get why doing an encore is the default practice so that not doing one constitutes contempt for your audience. It's good when it's fairly genuine/spontaneous though; at the South Park gig Radiohead's synth broke during the third encore so they aborted Motion Picture Soundtrack and did Creep instead.

(I'm not opposed to people leaving the stage or owt, but why don't you just say 'we're going for a piss, we'll come back and do a few more in two minutes'?)

This isn't a problem if you get DOWN.

It's prob'ly cos I'm getting old but I'd rather sit down and watch in a civilised fashion, with easy access to booze and fags. Standing up for more than 45 minutes is a bummer.

And I'd measure my moneysworth in terms of quality, not quantity.

Anyway, the original point about the encore is that it is so artificial. Just add the songs that you'd obviously already decided to play to the main set, and announce the final song properly.

I'm so anal about putting songs in sets and order that this all just makes intuitive sense to me. The fanboy side of me wants to see acts play as much as possible, so it's hard for me to get the "oh God, just get it over with" except for in the cases of groups that I don't like that much, and 90% I wouldn't ever go to see a headliner unless I really really liked them a lot.

I've got to say, though, that a lot of you just seem really lazy and easily bored. Again, I need to ask: why are you going to these shows to begin with?

Put it this way, would you routinely wish that movies were whole hours longer? (Personal bugbear - Hollywood doesn't seem to know how to make a tight 80 minute flick any more. Everything's always so stretched.)

I can see that more is sometimes more. Sometimes tho, I think more weakens a band's impact. (It occurs to me that I might be thinking about gigs where I'm not familiar with the performers' work before I see them.)

I don't think that shorter set times is a bad idea for a great many acts, but I think it's silly as some kind of ideal rule. There's so many acts for whom anything shorter than 80 minutes wouldn't seem right - they wouldn't be able to play enough songs, they wouldn't be able to cover enough of their material, people would leave very disappointed.

It's the keep-them-waiting tune-up/liquor-up preshow lull that I could do without.

I am totally pro-encore. I love the rituals-within-the-rituatls, like the "cover song" (New Pornographers usually use their encore to throw in some obscure power-pop cover song nuggets, or I remember Shudder to Think playing "Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'" with Dave Grohl once, etc.).

Encores at shows that are at the last show of a tour are always crazy, with the band going nuts and inviting everyone onstage and all that.

I third Morris and Matthew, then, anyways.

me?...HATE 'em...always thought they were so damn perfunctory...LOVE it when a band eschews them (like Clinic, as stated earlier), or critiques the practice (ala Electric Six, who stand silently, lead singer checking his watch for the requisite 3 minutes, then start playing again)...

I think, mostly, that encores are shit and forced.

Bump.

I honestly don't think it matters, like, at all, whether there's a gap between the last four songs of the set or not.

I think often they're used as a cliched way to suggest that "this gig is our best gig ever!" rather than just another night on the road. I think they should be reserved for really exceptional gigs only. It's the false sense of drama, the theatre of it; "they've gone offstage without playing their biggest hit, lets do the accelerating clap until they come back on". It just seems really "hello Cleveland!" and rubbish.

An encore ought to be a really nice surprise.

I rather agree, but when I think about how the band must feel...it at least gives them a chance to take a break.

Acknowledging that the idea of encores rings false at most shows, I kind of like the rhythm they lend to the evening, giving your senses a little break before the last hurrah. Even the big bands who get kind of ridiculous with it ("last night Bruce did FOUR encores instead of the usual THREE!") can use it as a way to pace the set and give it some structure beyond one song after another, which is fine as long as the breaks aren't ridiculously long.

seems like the down-time between the set and the encore has shrunk 'oer the years...why, I recall when the band really made you earn the encore...now, they barely leave the stage...

my fave recorded encore is on Bob Seger's Live Bullet, where he and the band ask the crowd over and over, "can we PLEASE rock and roll you one more time!"...see what they did there?...they flipped it, is what they did!

For the big establishment shows, I'd rather have the 15 minute intermission in the middle of the set than one long set and 2 encores. Then again, I rarely stay for encores. If you're going to leave the stage, then I'm going to leave the venue.

yeah, it's rote, but i like the idea of "ok, we played the real set that you paid for, now it's ok to fuck around. maybe we'll play a cover or something unfinished or bring people onstage."

Saw the Wedding Present last night. They did a long set and Gedge made a statement that they were not gonna do an encore (called them "hapless" as I recall). I admired the hell out of them for it.

"I think that it's of the utmost importance to leave an audience wanting more rather than exhausted and moaning, 'Thank Christ that's all over.' That's why we don't do no encores. They're a bloody con. You shouldn't do 'em, cos they're the biggest con ever and Led Zeppelin were one of the worst groups for starting that whole encore thing off." - Roger Daltrey

"I do not, as a rule, do encores. When I have finished playing, I have indeed finished playing. ... It's an old show business routine. When I stop I have nothing else left to play." - Bill Dixon

my not-at-all famous country band didn't do an encore last night because some of us had to work the next day, and others had to study for an exam, and to "leave 'em wanting more"

The encore seems like a parody nowadays. Every single band does it, and people seem to clap more out of inertia and "getting their money's worth" than actually wanting to see more.

Pearl Jam did it at Outside Lands...and even though i'm a PJ fan, it feels like an ego move to do it in a mixed crowd. don't mind it at a dedicated PJ show, but at a festival it's like, dudes, just play your extra suprise songs but don't make everyone clap you out.

D

when i saw liars just after 'they were wrong, so we drowned' came out, angus announced at the time the encore would have been, "back stage they've got caramel macchiatos and soft drink lattes, so we should go back there, hey? right? right?". then he continued, "well, how about instead of going backstage we just stand around for a minute and this can be the encore?". thought that was great.

So that's what they do during the encore? I always imagined they just stand around tapping their toes waiting to come back out at the dramatically optimal time.

haha, they do like to do things at the most appropriate "dramatically optimal time", yeah.

Do these concert acts ever find this whole "encore" thing a bit ridiculous? I feel like I were on stage, I would feel the need to comment on the absurdity of this lame, ritualistic cultural script-- and the monkey-like way the crowd sustains and propagates this meaningless meme.

man you guys are smart, seeing through the ILLUSION

rituals are good, wth. playing for an hour+ is hard, take a little break and then play the end of your set.

that said i've always liked it when bands don't do this. nah fuck it, that's our show, adios.

I saw Smashing Pumpkins in 1996, and jesus christ, they did 3 encores and I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

goole otm on all fronts

i've liked it when bands don't actually leave the stage, but say, "hey, that's our set, but do you guys want to hear another couple songs?"

Encores are still lame rituals that once had a point but which are now scripted cultural tropes stripped of all meaning, confirmed as of 2 days ago.

i saw acid mothers temple last night, and the ending to their actual set was way more epic than the ending of their encore. i suppose more > less but they should've just played two more songs and i could've gone home with those guitars hanging off the ceiling as the perfect parting image.