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Rewind or press on?


Roland Rock
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At last night's rehearsal, the guitarist said to the singer not to be afraid to 'rewind' if things go wrong at a gig, ie stop the song, and do it again properly. I was surprised, as I'm from the 'keep on going, don't draw attention to it'' school.

What do you think the punters would prefer?

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[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1366366265' post='2051458']
At last night's rehearsal, the guitarist said to the singer not to be afraid to 'rewind' if things go wrong at a gig, ie stop the song, and do it again properly. I was surprised, as I'm from the 'keep on going, don't draw attention to it'' school.

What do you think the punters would prefer?
[/quote]

If you make a pigs bollock of the 1st 10 seconds, by all means, call a halt and start again, make a joke of it, but once you're in and going then keep going to the end, I've switched guitars mid verse after a string break and nobody noticed, except the bass player, who looked over and wondered how my strat turned into an SG.
Drawing attention to your mistakes draws attention to them, people won't notice if you don't tell them.
:)

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A few times drummers have got the rhythm so wrong (boom where the whack should be) that I've just stopped the song and got us to start again. It happens and audiences don't really have a problem with it. It's usually the musicians own embarrassment that makes them continue to grind their way through the song instead of stopping.

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Oh yes. I can see the conductor stopping the whole orchestra halfway through a [size=4]Beethoven symphony, looking at the second violin and say "you made a mistake there, we'll start the whole thing again" :lol:[/size]

[size=4] [/size][size=4]I once saw Level 42 at Whitley Bay Ice Rink. Part way through one song Mike Lindup took a piano solo. He played a really bum note that ended up getting a huge cheer from the crowd. Take from that what you will.[/size]

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I have had to do this once, stop the song, it was about 30 seconds, singer covered it with some blag about a technical issue, bottom line we were all over the place and it was a disgrace, we got away with it, but I did feel like I wanted the ground to open up and take us all, I vowed there and then never again, whatever it takes, be it vocals on there own, a guitar or bass guitar playing the melody line, or just a simple backing and build the song up, the show must go on.

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Guest bassman7755

In general the punters wont notice anything wrong unless the singer totally messes up so I dont see the point in starting over.
I was involved in one particular calamity though when I used to play guitar in a band - we went into radar love with the bass player playing the intro riff in the wrong key and since its played bass-guitar unison it sounded absolutely dreadful. The over guitarist insisted we stop and try again. It took us 2 more attempts at starting the song before we worked out what was going wrong, by which time the audience were pissing themselves :unsure:

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjVJuHCGYQA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Prime example from my band!
1st note ffs! ; )
I'd say if its early in fess up & laugh about it, start again, broke the ice with the audience that night for sure.
I've seen PJ Harvey stop a song halfway through & start it again with a smiling apology.
Just dont get mardy about the cock-up, audience will think yer right up yerselves!
Norm

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[quote name='Norm' timestamp='1366370587' post='2051573']

1st note ffs! ; )

[/quote]

Bin there, dun that.

Switching between 4-string and 5-string basses, on two occasions I've come in on the G where it should have been a C. Both times the band laughed themselves silly but never missed a beat.

I've also played one song at a gig while yelling at the drummer: "It's NOT a shuffle! It's NOT a shuffle!"

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[quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1366367484' post='2051489']


If you make a pigs bollock of the 1st 10 seconds, by all means, call a halt and start again, make a joke of it, but once you're in and going then keep going to the end, I've switched guitars mid verse after a string break and nobody noticed, except the bass player, who looked over and wondered how my strat turned into an SG.
Drawing attention to your mistakes draws attention to them, people won't notice if you don't tell them.
:)
[/quote]
I agree, if you do lots of covers with more than one band and in different keys in think its fair to start in the wrong key and have to have a rewind as the OP calls it, if you are generally good for the rest of the set its ok and a good front person should be able to lighten the mood! As long as its not every other song though.

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At a gig you must carry on. Unless you are a famous band playing your best-known song I guarantee no one in the audience will have noticed anything was off. And don't draw any attention to the fact that things haven't gone as planned. The mark of a decent band is one that can recover from any on-stage calamity.

Edited by BigRedX
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[quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1366367484' post='2051489']
If you make a pigs bollock of the 1st 10 seconds, by all means, call a halt and start again, make a joke of it, but once you're in and going then keep going to the end,
[/quote]

+1 for this. Been there & got the T-Shirt.

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