On stage

[mc9mm]

I know there has been a couple of discussion about cool stuff you can do on stage and I dont mean to start a new one, I was just wondering if you actually use any of the stuff.

I've done it a couple of times.
It can be awesome or embarrasing. The difficult part is knowing when its awesome and when its embarrasing.
My theory is to look at the audience.
If they're all sitting down and 50% are sleeping, then
stick to looking focused. But if they're all screaming
and jumping, you can start duckwalking all over.
Then of course i you stay still for 50 minutes and then
you start thrashing the guitar and doing windmills, that
might look kinda stupid.

[ControlledChaos]

headbang well. Not with out-and out lost control of the body, but instead with reserve and a look of power, determination, as if you are the master of this catastrophe coming through your marshalls. :) Maybe I'm just a lost and forsaken metalhead...

[Bardsley]

Point at random audiences while singing the "meaningful love tunes". Hold out your hand as if you're reaching for them, and look really intense. Watch them back away from the stage... slowly, out, the, door...

[Willdridge]

Point about headbanging.......Warm up...I got carried away listening to my CD's last night...my neck/shoulders and back are ever-so-slight sore...(ahem) Still, all in the name of metal, eh?

For some reason, when we get bored on stage, myself, my other guitarist and my bass player start doing our Status Quo impression...swaying guitars side to side...hehe. Thinking about it, it's one of the dafting looking things you're ever going to see, heheh, ah well!
Now I must go and run a warm bath...try and regain feeling in my upper body...rock on people!

[aiwass]

Headbanging is of the essence.

[Slasher]

Originally posted by Bardsley
Point at random audiences while singing the "meaningful love tunes". Hold out your hand as if you're reaching for them, and look really intense. Watch them back away from the stage... slowly, out, the, door...

How can you point at the audience if your playin the guitar?????

[skee1]

Yes you can point at the crowd ect while playing your
guitar plus singing.(Useing your left or right hand)
1. you could keep a hammer-on sounding with your left hand
or a bend sounding ect then point with your right hand.
2.Now if you point with left hand you could use an open tuning to do it or just keep striking an open string for
the key your in or a right hand mute ect.
3.Also you could take both hands off of the guitar while
singing and playing the guitar in a few seconds of the
song and hold out both hands .
4.I would recomend very good timing to do the obove tricks.
If your group is playing behind you your being covered by
them while your pointing at the crowd all you have to do
is get back into the groove of the song.
Plus you could do the above if theres a break in the song.
Theres endless tricks that Pro's use to do this!
I forgot to mention keeping a chord sustaining ect.
Mark
P:S It never fails at one time or another i get called
to the side of the stage while doing a lead part in a
song to be handed an anouncement to be read over the microphone to the crowd.
And when i take the paper i have to keep playing with one
hand untill i place it some where real fast so i can get
my right hand going again.


to the

[Edited by skee1 on 05-11-2002 at 01:04 PM]

[aiwass]

I saw Dream theater live not to long ago, and on one of the songs, although I can't remember what it was called, there was one of those "hey, hey!" chorus lines that involve fists in the air. Petrucci then thrust his right hand in the air along with the audience, while still playing an extremely complex, very fast rhythm guitar part using nothing but legato (only left hand). Now THAT is cool.

[Slasher]

I sit corrected. I think I'll stick to plain ol' borin headbangin for now though. I'm not one for flingin my arm about, I'll leave that to the singer.

[Bardsley]

Watch Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner" at Woodstock. At the start he is doing some hammering and feedback stuff, while holding a peace sign with his right hand. A classic image. I was actually thinking of when you're singing,w hich I do a bit of sometimes without actually playing guitar. I don't really do that sort of thing, but as a U2 fan I always laugh when Bono does his passionate look and holds out a hand to the audience. Classic cliched pop singing. I do it someitmes when I have friends wathcing, just as a bit of a joke. Same with doing as much as possible with my left hand on the guitar while holding my right fist up. It just looks so funny. It's like "yes, I am THE MAN".

[Willdridge]

Originally posted by Bardsley
Watch Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner" at Woodstock. At the start he is doing some hammering and feedback stuff, while holding a peace sign with his right hand.

Are you sure?...Don't mean to be too pedantic, but Hendrix played guitar left handed.......if he was doing a peace sign with his right hand, (his fretting hand)...then hammer-on's'd be quite hard...
But then again, Hendrix did have a knack of defying normal guitar standards, didn't he?...Hehehe

[kingdavid]

Me and my boys do a lot of this when we go for rock nite;every wednesday,there's a club that plays rock only.
The sorerer(SP!!)the neck afterwards,the merrier the rock was.
The less sore,the wacker the rock was.

[Incidents Happen]

wanna know my stage presence? I havent played on stage yet (im 14) but i will be at the high school next year (for open jams, some parties, etc), but really i dont get into that stage presence crap. I mean, to some people yeah, its good, but to me i focus 'only' on the music, and thats fine with me.

[aiwass]

True. Music does come first. And whatever you do, don't listen to those assholes who tell you to wear your guitar low because it looks cool. Wear your guitar as high as you f*ckin' can! Never compromise playability for looks!

[mc9mm]

Well ok I understand what you guys are saying
and I dont agree at all.
If you go to a concert, you want to see
a show of some kind.
I think I saw somewhere that 40% or something goes
just to see the show. I dont have the exact
figures but there are several people that
focus only on the show!
And the rest focuses on the music, but
they still WANT the show.
I dont think its more than 0,2-0,3% that
dont care about the show at all.
And lets face it, we do concerts to please the crowd.
I dont think any of us would like to be in
an empty bar/arena/school and play for ourselves.
And because we do this for the crowd, I think its
important they get an experience.
It doesnt have to be like alice cooper, just that
you are alive and kickin', maybe moving, screaming,
jumping, bleeding, crying etc.
I've been to a couple of concerts where the band
is standing still and are looking down all the time.
I tell you half of the crowd always left halfway through
the concert, and I was one of them.

Going to concerts is much more fun than sitting home
listening to the CD, and thats because you
see the band, they're moving, they're having contact
with the crowd, you're with alot of others that
like the same band;
Its a rush! Or, it should be.
And if you stand still all the time thats
not going to happen.

[aiwass]

Yes by all means. But the music comes first.

[mc9mm]

Well of course it does, but that doesnt mean
that you cant do anything on stage.

[aiwass]

No of course. Devil horns in the air!!!

[mwwagg]

After playing many gigs the only thing that can i say to do on stage is go crazy and do what you love doing no matter what, if you persever with this the people will start to love what you do,

So some things i've enjoyed doing, jumping madly , throwing my axe (SHOCK!!!!) jumping into the crowd, (must be done with large crowds) and well climbing on the drums and launching off into the stage.....

well do what you enjoy...

[educatedfilm]

lol, i saw a photo of me yestrday, one of me in one the very few jam sesions i've been invovled in...
I was wearing my guitar on my chest.. heheh, basically, i had tightened up my guitar strap, and put on the guitar like a bra, which i thought was stupid at the time... but looking at it now, it was actually quite funny...

[aiwass]

You know what i hate? People who smash guitars. They piss me off!

[educatedfilm]

lol, smashing a guitar, with some real agression can look really cool... (See pete townsend)

[aiwass]

I saw Trail of dead the other day, and they finished the show by smashing the drum set and throwing a strat across the stage into a monitor (almost hit the bass player in the face). Awesome to watch or not, i think it's stupid, and besides, it didn't save the show. Worst f*cking concert i've been to (musically, that is).

[educatedfilm]

lol, let me guess. your a shredder right?

[aiwass]

I'm a shredder (well, i try). The reason i didn't like Trail of dead, though was the fact that the guy was screaming instead of singing, which is great if you can pull it off like slipknot or guns n roses or something, but this guy couldn't. Another thing was that all the songs sounded the same, except for one texas boogie tune that they didn't write. Don't get me wrong, as much as i like shredding, I like Nirvana and Alice in Chains. However, this band was just plain bad live. I wonder how they sound when they have the one bazillion takes and pro tools. Britney, anyone?

[educatedfilm]

fair enough, it's just i find 9 times out of 10 poeple who dislike art rock, are shredders or are into chavanist cock rock (eg GnR , peal jam etc etc)..
it's strange, and i dont get it... I cant speak for trail of dead, but i do know poeple who love nirvana for teen spirit, or come as you are, and have no idea what songs like "in bloom" mean... they just like something glossy,and intense... which i think is sad, cos personally that's pretty much what i'm against.

edit: i read that through, and thought it sounded kinda turdy... it's not a dig at you or anyone else... so dont worry about it...
but i'd hate to be like the manic street preachers, a great band, with amazing lyrics, and politics that goes well over the heads of the mainstream... and it's only in the mainstream cos it's quite catchy... and intense...
listen to "found that soul", or " motercylce emptyness" (this track was way over produced i think)...

[Edited by educatedfilm on 05-19-2002 at 01:20 PM]

[THE_HACK_PACK]

"Going to concerts is much more fun than sitting home
listening to the CD, and thats because you
see the band, they're moving, they're having contact
with the crowd, you're with alot of others that
like the same band;
Its a rush! Or, it should be.
And if you stand still all the time thats
not going to happen"


You haven't seen TOOL live then,Darker then a morgue on XMAS eve and less motion then a Stonehenge rock.And that Bass player!!!,,,He's got serious stage fright,,hair in eyes all night long with his head always down,,NEVER,, looks at the crowd.

[kingdavid]

Originally posted by aiwass
You know what i hate? People who smash guitars. They piss me off!
They don't exactly piss me off.
But I always go:
"HEEEEEEEEEYYY!!!!!"
Or I squirm in my seat.
I mean,the guitar I have,I bought it for the equivalent of about US$50.00.Fifty.Then some guy is crushing some niiice acoustic.Like in that song by Brian McKnight.I dunno what it's it's called.Isaw it on T.V the other day.DON'T DO THAT!
But at least in the song,it gets mended back.As in rewinding thattape or something.

[aiwass]

One thing is smashing a cheapo strat, but when someone goes smashing a Parker Fly or a PRS or some aged-wood, one-off acoustic, that's just wrong!! Those of you with German Mtv, have you seen that Farin Urlaub "OK" video? The one where he smashes over twenty guitars and the whole stage is covered with guitar parts...

[mc9mm]

While they were building that Jimi Hendrix museum
in.. ..San Francisco(?) the architect smashed
4 or 5 vintage strats (we're talking 2000-5000$ each)
just so he would know what a smashed strat
looks like in real life.
(The museum has the shape of a smashed strat)
What a waste...

But when it comes to smashing guitars in general,
you have to admit that its better to smash expensive
guitars, instead of doing it like KISS,
switching their expensive 4000$ Gibsons to
some 300$ Epiphones.
I mean, even if they dont smash their real guitars,
I wont be able to play them anyway!
And if I cant have them so one can! Smash them!
oh sorry, got carried away there.