Getting Bored With The Setlists

[Ben]

Originally Posted by Takk

I mean if you look at their sets, something like 18 songs out of 23 are singles. Maybe more album tracks would become hits and live staples if they gave them more of a chance.

Snoo and I were discussing this after the Lincoln show. From that night (excluding the new album) only two songs weren't singles (JCEQT and TIY) and even if you did include the new album, it was only GP, PFAYM and HA that weren't singles (or furture singles).

[MrsCarbohydrate]

There's a massive difference between what you get on paper and what you get at the gig. I would prefer them to play KEvin Carter 23 times in Aberdeen than IHOE once, because the crowd was full of Aberdonian locals who had no enthusiasm for anything but the big hits. And when the rest of the crowd shows no enthusiasm it really ruins the gig for me.

I'd like them to have a bigger pool of songs (and more off the new album) but playing obscure stuff isn't going to automatically make a gig great.

[BrianPowell]

I think they could play Stay Beautiful, Yes, Australia, Found That Soul, Send Away The Tigers and Me And Stephen Hawking a lot more.
I know people are going to say they are not rarities or anything, but I just think they are popular 'hits' that don't get a regular airing as some others.
I don't know, i maybe wrong.

[darkanddivine]

Originally Posted by MrsCarbohydrate

There's a massive difference between what you get on paper and what you get at the gig. I would prefer them to play KEvin Carter 23 times in Aberdeen than IHOE once, because the crowd was full of Aberdonian locals who had no enthusiasm for anything but the big hits. And when the rest of the crowd shows no enthusiasm it really ruins the gig for me.

I'd like them to have a bigger pool of songs (and more off the new album) but playing obscure stuff isn't going to automatically make a gig great.

Ahhh the voice of reason. Part of my original reply is exactly because of that, so many people are on here dissing the setlists as they come in, rather than going to the gig itself. Those comments hold no relevance to those who were there at the gig, it's just a typed up list of songs. And if you are going to the gigs and getting bored, take a break, go see someone else.

[Ben]

Originally Posted by MrsCarbohydrate

I'd like them to have a bigger pool of songs (and more off the new album) but playing obscure stuff isn't going to automatically make a gig great.

Good point. There needs to be a balance, and as Tim said as well, they need to pick the songs carefully. If the band said they were going to do a tour where, every night, they would do five or six real rarities* (different ones every night) and the rest would be hits, I would make a real effort to get to as many as shows as possible.

*e.g. Ready for Drowning, The Girl Who Wanted to Be God, Life Becoming A Landslide, There By The Grace of God, Further Away etc etc - Not even that obscure really.

[mothers_are_saints]

I'd like more of a variation in the second half of this tour. I'm not going to complain with what we get though, but as has been said previously PPF was the perfect balance, singles/album tracks and a new song.

They have such a wealth of material even stretching the live stuff back to the PPF tour surely it can't be too hard to relearn a track or two they've 'recently' played live? I'd even love them to bring out 'Prologue To History' again but that won't happen on this tour!

If you want feedback Lovesean4ever, if you must stick with the same setlists they've been playing so far, how about just mixing it up more? Completely mess up the running order a bit and wow us even more!

[Takk]

Originally Posted by BradfieldsLoveChild

Snoo and I were discussing this after the Lincoln show. From that night (excluding the new album) only two songs weren't singles (JCEQT and TIY) and even if you did include the new album, it was only GP, PFAYM and HA that weren't singles (or furture singles).

Aye, and I'd basically call JC a single from Journal, and PFAYM will probably be a future one. Even the supposedly obscure song was a number 1?

Originally Posted by MrsCarbohydrate

There's a massive difference between what you get on paper and what you get at the gig. I would prefer them to play KEvin Carter 23 times in Aberdeen than IHOE once, because the crowd was full of Aberdonian locals who had no enthusiasm for anything but the big hits. And when the rest of the crowd shows no enthusiasm it really ruins the gig for me.

I'd like them to have a bigger pool of songs (and more off the new album) but playing obscure stuff isn't going to automatically make a gig great.

Definitely....they need to think carefully. Just picking obscure stuff isn't going to make it great, but the opposite is also true.

[Alexkid]

Bands are now making the majority of their income from touring and merchiandise available on tour, as opposed to historically making money from a successful record and using the tour as a promotional tool. This has implications in that there's more pressure to define yourself as a successful touring band and an attractive live proposition, rather than having the flexibility to showcase curios and experiment with the live format. This means that they have to appease your average Joe (or Aberdonian) by keeping the crowd engaged and yes, that means playing YSTS, ME and Kevin Carter. I do think they could mix it up a little more, but I think that the hits should still form the core of the setlist. I also think they've missed a chance by playing only the mid-paced songs from Postcards, and I think adding in Billion Balconies or Don't be Evil would help things along a bit.

[FacelessSenseOfVoid]

The whole point of this tour really was to promote the new album and to be honest, they haven't even done that well at all. It's quite poor really considering that they've pretty much ignored the second half of the album that contains all the ROCK songs!

[darkanddivine]

It's also worth pointing out that even though the gigs are smaller, the hardocore fanbase still probably accounts for less than 30% of the audience. That means the other 70% aren't going to give 2 natches if they don't do Die in the Summertime. If you aim the set at the 30% of hardcore fans then the reaction isn't going to be too favourable form the crowd as a whole I would imagine. Album tracks from EMG and TIMT would have a decent chance as they have sold over a million copies and so on.

[Ben]

Originally Posted by darkanddivine

It's also worth pointing out that even though the gigs are smaller, the hardocore fanbase still probably accounts for less than 30% of the audience. That means the other 70% aren't going to give 2 natches if they don't do Die in the Summertime. If you aim the set at the 30% of hardcore fans then the reaction isn't going to be too favourable form the crowd as a whole I would imagine. Album tracks from EMG and TIMT would have a decent chance as they have sold over a million copies and so on.

The thing is, how do you define the "hardcore"? Where do they stop and the "casual fan" start? Obviously, most of the people who make the effort to post on here would be considered "hardcore" but I bet there would still be a good lump of people who would still own/know THB, TIMT and EMG etc. I agree that playing some obscure b-side probably isn't going to be the way to go, but you could bring things like Elvis Impersonator or Ready for Drowning and a large percentage of the crowd would still know the songs. They're still fans after all, even if they don't own The Holy Bible on 12 different formats...

[FacelessSenseOfVoid]

Originally Posted by BradfieldsLoveChild

The thing is, how do you define the "hardcore"? Where do they stop and the "casual fan" start? Obviously, most of the people who make the effort to post on here would be considered "hardcore" but I bet there would still be a good lump of people who would still own/know THB, TIMT and EMG etc. I agree that playing some obscure b-side probably isn't going to be the way to go, but you could bring things like Elvis Impersonator or Ready for Drowning and a large percentage of the crowd would still know the songs. They're still fans after all, even if they don't own The Holy Bible on 12 different formats...

Good point, I would also say that there are a lot of older "casuals" there too especially up in the seats and hanging around towards the back of the standing area. You can bet your bottom dollar that they have owned (or still have) a copy of TIMT or EMG, so playing rarities from those albums shouldn't be a problem to the band.

It's also strange how casual fans all seem to know ME when that barely made a dent in the charts and to be honest I had never heard of it before I became a Manics fan.

[darkanddivine]

Originally Posted by BradfieldsLoveChild

The thing is, how do you define the "hardcore"? Where do they stop and the "casual fan" start? Obviously, most of the people who make the effort to post on here would be considered "hardcore" but I bet there would still be a good lump of people who would still own/know THB, TIMT and EMG etc. I agree that playing some obscure b-side probably isn't going to be the way to go, but you could bring things like Elvis Impersonator or Ready for Drowning and a large percentage of the crowd would still know the songs. They're still fans after all, even if they don't own The Holy Bible on 12 different formats...

Hardcore is basically anyone who is such a big fan (and this can happen with almost any band I guess) that they have overplayed the big hits and thusly need something different from a gig.

Being a bit of a statto, I thought I'd have a look at the last 6 months of manics plays on LastFM. This site caters for music fans who actually bother to scrobble their plays might give a decent indication of what folks actually listen to across the board, ignoring the Mondeo man types who probably don't. As the band are doing about 23 tracks I've taken the top 23 from the chart.

A Design For Life
If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next
Motorcycle Emptiness
Your Love Alone Is Not Enough
You Stole The Sun From My Heart
The Everlasting
Everything Must Go
Australia
Jackie Collins Existential Question Time
Kevin Carter
Tsunami
Faster
You Love Us
This Joke Sport Severed
AutumnSong
La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh)
From Despair To Where
Peeled Apples
Journal For Plague Lovers
Little Baby Nothing
Yes
She Bathed Herself In A Bath Of Bleach
Indian Summer

Interesting reading. It should be noted that the top 3 are by far and away the most popular. @Facelesssenseofvoid I think ME gets a lot of play on "classic rock" type stations and Radio 2 now so it's pretty well known these days.

[MrsCarbohydrate]

Originally Posted by FacelessSenseOfVoid

It's also strange how casual fans all seem to know ME when that barely made a dent in the charts and to be honest I had never heard of it before I became a Manics fan.

It's on the greatest hits.

[Ben]

ME gets played on XFM a fair amount as well. Probably more than any other Manics song, with the exception of YLAINE.

Originally Posted by darkanddivine

Hardcore is basically anyone who is such a big fan (and this can happen with almost any band I guess) that they have overplayed the big hits and thusly need something different from a gig.

Being a bit of a statto, I thought I'd have a look at the last 6 months of manics plays on LastFM. This site caters for music fans who actually bother to scrobble their plays might give a decent indication of what folks actually listen to across the board, ignoring the Mondeo man types who probably don't. As the band are doing about 23 tracks I've taken the top 23 from the chart.

A Design For Life
If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next
Motorcycle Emptiness
Your Love Alone Is Not Enough
You Stole The Sun From My Heart
The Everlasting
Everything Must Go
Australia
Jackie Collins Existential Question Time
Kevin Carter
Tsunami
Faster
You Love Us
This Joke Sport Severed
AutumnSong
La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh)
From Despair To Where
Peeled Apples
Journal For Plague Lovers
Little Baby Nothing
Yes
She Bathed Herself In A Bath Of Bleach
Indian Summer

Interesting reading. It should be noted that the top 3 are by far and away the most popular. @Facelesssenseofvoid I think ME gets a lot of play on "classic rock" type stations and Radio 2 now so it's pretty well known these days.

That is an interesting list, but the question is, would the people that have listed those songs on Last FM be going to the gigs? If that's just a collection of all the Manics songs in order, there's a good chance that many of them were played by people who thought "I fancy a bit of Design For Life today", listen to it once or twice, and then go back to listening to something else. Basically, they like a few songs, but wouldn't necessarily shell out £30 to see them live. I don't know the answer; I'm just playing Devil's Advocate.

I think the band should really enter their gigs with the mindset that a good 85% of the audience are going to own at least FD, EMG, TIMT and SATT and therefore shouldn't be afraid to play some album tracks from them.