Not being an actor or musician or any other kind of artist, I have been curious how one can maintain interest after repeat performances. What sparked me to actually start this thread was VH1’s Best Songs of the 80s show last week. The dude from Flock of Seagulls said wherever he plays (he’s still touring?!?!?) everyone only wants to hear “I Ran”. And that he was absolutely sick of it. Now, in his case, as pretty much a one hit wonder, that’s all anyone knows. But still, is Mick Jagger interested in singing “Satisfaction” ever again? Or a Broadway show with 12 performances a week. Why aren’t the performer ready to puke after the first week? Or let’s say you make pottery and everyone just loves that vase. and you make three hundred. Or you make art glass or iron work etc.
How do the artists maintain their own interest level?
(8 actually.) I asked an actor friend of mine this question once and he said that he goes into each night as if it’s completely new. (And he’s played one of the most famous Broadway roles ever over 1,000 times.) He’ll try to take the role in one direction one night, maybe change it up a bit the next, and can put whatever emotions that he was feeling during the day into the role and get it all out onstage. Plus playing off of other cast members & audience reactions helps to keep it from becoming stale.
Not sure if that would relate to concert singers or other work like that.
Yep. My mother asked me that way back when I was an actress (before those damned talkies ruined my career). Every night it’s new, it has to be. And each audience is different, you have to play differently for them. Sometimes they’ll laugh at anything (I’m talking in a comedy, one hopes), sometimes it’s like playin’ a split week at Easter Island.
Paul Simon has a tendency to screw up his greatest hits, messing with the melody and sometimes the arrangement. It annoys the hell out of me, because you can’t sing along anymore. Paul McCartney, on the other hand, will still do the same songs practically note-for-note from the recordings, and he doesn’t even touch most of his catalog. Who knows how many thousand times he’s played Hey Jude or Let it Be without getting sick of it.
Many groups play even the same set (or similar) several nights in a row, or throughout the entire tour.
As a washed-up performing musician, I have to say I hated playing the same few songs over and over, even at practice, and this was a constant argument between me and other members of the band. However, every performance was a new performance, to a different crowd. Sometimes I could get really into the songs I hated if the audience showed interest. I have to admit that if I had made Flock of Seagulls’ money, this would not have been that big a complaint.
I’ve seen Bob Dylan in concert a couple times, both with a co worker who is a HUGE fan and has seen Dylan dozens of times over the last 15 years or so. I’m not a big fan but I like a good show and Bob Dylan live is a good show. Anyway, the few songs that I knew best, like “Blowing in the Wind”, that he played didn’t sound like the decades old single I had heard on the radio. My friend said that he didn’t even notice any stylistic differences for such songs. He just loved the show.
There’s a local mostly cover band who’s been around for more than 20 years. There was a story in the paper about them once where the guys all said that they hate playing “Brown Eyed Girl”. And that they had to play it every night, every weekend. Once when I saw them in a bar on a really slow night, this one woman kept going up an requesting that exact song. After about 10 attempts they finally relented and played it, but very slow, and with just the guitar. The woman was not satisfied, but I guess the band members didn’t have to retch.
I suppose my question really is, how do performers make it new and fresh? I can see that a different audience every night would be a help, but the same lines, the same scenes, the same songs etc. for weeks on end? I just can’t get my head around it.
Live in the moment. Performing is fun, and working with good performers makes it even better. You focus on the differences, even if its the same song, scene, or whatever.
There are a lot of activities where you’re mostly doing the same thing. Think of all the little kids who’ve seen Shrek or the Little Mermaid 100 times and they still want to watch it.
Hell, people watch television for hours every night, and you’re just sitting still and staring at a screen.
I liked the repetition, actually. Yes, you try to change it up a bit (and sometimes that works, and sometimes it’s disastrous!) but overall part of what I liked about acting was always knowing what to say! Y’know the “delayed comeback” you think up 6 hours later and wish you had said? Never happens with a script! I find IRL that I’m often searching for what to say or how best to say it, but on stage I didn’t have to worry about that. I can revel in feelings, where in life I’m distracted with intellect.
I like to watch movies and read the same books and hear the same music over and over, too. Something about repetition is very comfortable for me.
I suspect that those people who don’t find it comfortable, or at least those who would “retch” from the repetition, aren’t going to be very successful performers for very long. The ones who like it are the ones who make it.
And I was ready to frakking kill Paul Simon for mutilating “Bridge Over Trouble Water” when I finally saw him live after loving the song on the Central Park album for two decades.
People change. Tastes change. I don’t expect Eric Clapton to ever sing Layla again like he did in Derek and the Dominoes, but I always hope. Dusty Springfield never sang Son of a Preacher the same after Aretha Franklin did her version. Roland Orzabal of Tears for Fears no longer sings Mad World like he did after Donny Darko…
