I went to the White Stripes concert this Saturday and had a blast. But even for one of my favorite bands, I am sick to death of this grovelling please-come-out-and-play-your-biggest-hits cheering after they go off the stage. Its so formulaic now, I think it has become more of a knee-jerk ego trip for the band rather than a true expression of fans appreciation and love of the music.
Not that this will ever happen, because of my lack of musical talent and desire to work at it, but… If I ever have a band, I will end every performance with: “We think encores are a waste of time, so instead of leaving for a minutes and coming back for one more song, we’re gonna play these two and call it a night. Thanks for coming.” And then break into our two most popular songs.
On the last tour that I saw of A Perfect Circle, they refused to do encores. They played their set and when it was over, they said goodnight and the lights came up. I thought that was pretty cool.
I don’t mind the concept of a band needing a couple of minutes to regroup, hit the john, whatever. It just seems silly to pretend that we’re calling them back when the lights are still dark and we all know the show isn’t over. I don’t think it really has anything to do with the bands’ egos, but more to do with the standard. Everybody does it, it’s expected. Plus, it gives the band a short break.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
Pearl Jam encores, for example, usually consist of 8+ songs, sometimes followed by another encore of one or two.
I always liked the way the Grateful Dead did it. Following the climactic end of their second set of songs, they would come out and do one short song as an encore. Rarely, maybe once in a blue moon, they even play 2 songs for an encore. The encore song kind of brought a sense of closure and grand calmness (usually the encore song was a slow one) to a (typically) fantastic performance. But they avoided the syndrome of most rock bands, that of ‘saving the greatest hits for the end’ and expecting the fans to cheer long and loud to make it feel like they earned the encore. I’ve been to several concerts in which the clapping had pretty much given out or was lackluster to begin with(because the band’s performance just wasn’t very good) and then seen the band come out for a long, multi-song encore. Very dumb. I think “knee-jerk ego trip for the band” is exactly right.
I like encores. For example, when I saw the White Stripes in July, they played pretty much nonstop (I wish they had split their show into two sets, because the second half lagged a bit compared to an awesome first half. Maybe if they had had a break, the second half would’ve been better). Anyways, an encore allows the band to take a quick break before hitting some good songs.
A lot of bands I’ve seen do some nifty covers in their encores. That’s always nice.
Sometimes when you see awesome musicians (thinking of a Lucinda Williams show I saw recently), you do NOT want them to go away, EVER! I relished the encores as a chance to see her play some more.
Another thing about encores–it fools some of the audience into leaving, which means I get more breathing room.
I love encores. You get the lame "gotta beat the traffic!"ers out and then get more concert. I’ll never forget the Pumpkins doing 2 encores, one of which was one hour-long jam.
When I saw Chicago and The beach Boys at Anaheim Stadium in 1974, both bands came out as a “final” encore and did a kick-ass version of “Surfin’ USA” with horns. The lights were turned on, no one left, we stood and cheered for 18 minutes. Finally both bands came back out and Terry Kath said: “Folks, we’re out of songs! We don’t have any more we can…uh hold on a second.” He then spoke off mic to a couple of the other band members, and they all broke into a Rolling Stones medley that was totally impromptu, and totally incredible. Imagine the Stones done with horns and harmonies. IIRC, it was “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”, “Satisfaction”, and “Honky Tonk Women.”
A night I still haven’t forgotten almost 30 years later.