Lessons learned!

The way I figure it, every band train-wrecks a gig at some point. (Not every aspect of every performance at this gig qualified as a train wreck, but I agree with Herr Kapellführer that the overall impression wasn't what we were going for.) Anyway, not to be too Pollyannish about it, what's important to me is that we figure out things we can do to deal with the things that went pear-shaped. Sometimes that's "fix them" and other times it's "accept that this will happen".

Problem 1: Travel

We might not be able to do gigs in Tacoma on weeknights.¹ We all had to leave work much earlier than we can regularly afford to do, and we were all late anyway.

I also need to not get the bandleader lost.

Problem 2: Audience

Masonic audiences don't really "get" performance, and we can't expect them to. The Most Worshipful Grand Master isn't going to understand, or care, that trying to shake hands with a performer in the middle of a song is an appalling gaffe on his part. We do need to figure out what level of "performance mode" we need to be in, and act accordingly; i.e., brushing off, as politely but promptly as we can, chatty people when we are getting ready to go on.

Also, I am pretty sure that a half-hour set is longer than any Masonic audience will tolerate. (I'm thinking back to how squirmy people get at the Friendship Dinner.) Our patron might have wanted a half-hour set and not understood, himself, that his crowd would mutiny. At Masonic functions, we should probably plan for much shorter sets (20 minutes) and have backup material for "encores" with the understanding that we probably won't be asked to play encores.

Our leader shortened our set perfectly. It's no fun to have to do, but we did it exactly right.

I'm not convinced that playing for social hour or refreshment is a good idea. Our older members don't like background music. I don't enjoy doing it. On the other hand, every band has to learn to deal with playing in a noisy environment where no one is listening. :) And, it was a great opportunity to test out our shaky songs.

Problem 3: Logistics

If we are playing for social hour, shouldn't we and the social hour be in the same room?

Let's insist on knowing the exact schedule with exact times: when we should arrive and set up, when dinner will be served, and when we should start playing. Let's be more precise than "after dinner". Oh yes, the schedule will slip; I've never seen a Masonic dinner served on time. But it gives us all an idea of what to expect, what to aim for, and where to try to be when. Laying out the full schedule for our patron might alert him that the set he's requested will make the evening run too late, and it may prompt him to be more communicative with us if there are changes to what we're expecting.

We should allow ourselves time beforehand for a real warm-up and sound check.

It might have been better if we had eaten quickly and gotten on stage earlier, maybe after the entrée dishes were cleared and while dessert was being served.

I felt rude packing up and leaving right after we finished, but I'll defer to the wishes of the band if we all agree that that's how we want to do it. :)

Problem 4: Material

Songs that seem to be of a reasonable length become way too long when we play them slowly, e.g., Arkansas Traveler. We should time them in rehearsal and either speed them up, trim them down, or cut them from the set.

If we don't all have our breaks solid enough to play them very loudly, the instrumental and breaks-heavy songs turn into very very long muddy runs of nothing but rhythm. Seriously, the audience has no idea what's going on or why we're still playing rhythm, because they can't hear any melody happening. We should attack this in a variety of ways: shoring up our individual breaks, shortening the breaks, trimming breaks out of songs if they're not ready, learning to play a lot louder, and dropping marginal songs from the set list altogether.

It's a shame to put our best songs toward the end and end up having to cut them, but there's probably nothing we can do about that.

Problem 5: Stage fright and other realities

Let's make our "dress rehearsal" environment closer to a stage setup. We sound different when we are all facing the same direction rather than in a circle. We're further away from our music stands when we're onstage and we didn't realize they'd be harder to read. We need a set list to be visible somewhere at all times, in large print, and our lead sheets might need to be in larger print also.

Our bandleader got used to doing the break-order from memory in rehearsal, but casual memorization failed under pressure. Either memorize it rigorously, or force yourself to use the lead sheets all the time so you're in the habit of it...?

Don't try to rewrite the song while playing it. :) If you miss a section, it's over, let it go. The FMB debacle shows why it's important to pick the song back up as you've practiced it to get yourself back on track as quickly as possible.

We should consider having a no-alcohol policy. It didn't calm my nerves at all, it just messed me up more.

Let's figure out ways to encourage each other and keep our energy up when the audience's responsiveness is low.

Problem 6: Morale

I'd really like it if we could build in time afterwards to go out (for coffee or whatever) and briefly regroup/postmortem immediately after the show, rather than individuals going home and moping about how much worse they think they did than was actually the case. :)

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¹ Yes, I've accepted gigs in Tacoma and Coupeville on weeknights in February... but those are events I have to go to anyway and I'm prepared to solo 'em if need be. Those might not be suited to the entire band for that exact reason.