I can’t remember a concert that I’ve been to, other than opening acts, where the headliner didn’t do an encore. You know where the performer ends the performance says “thank you” and they all leave the stage. The audience continues clapping and cheering and after a few minutes the performers come back on stage and play 4-5 more songs.
Venues don’t even turn the house lights up until after the encore, because they know the performer is coming back. You can look up concert reviews and sites like setlist.com and see that every headliner has consistent encore songs they play during their tour.
So when did this tradition start? And why does this silly act of going off stage for a 5 minute break before finishing the concert continue?
I would imagine it started at some point when someone did end a show and after hearing the applause, they returned to the stage. From there I’d guess people did it for an ego boost and it eventually became a standard part of the show.
When did James Brown start doing his cape routine?
Elvis Presley didn’t do encores. He came out, sang the set of songs he planned on, and then left. But the audience was used to performers coming back for an encore so they stayed, expecting Presley to return. This was the origin of the announcement that “Elvis has left the building” - they were telling the audience that, no fooling, the concert was really over and they should leave.
It is not universal, although it happens as you describe 98.5% of the time, at least with the vast majority of the bands I see live.
Things like a strict time curfew at a specific venue, often to do with jurisdictional laws governing alcohol sales, enforcement of local noise ordinances, a contractual issue with the union stage crew, strict time scheduling at a multi-act music festival, or an accute cocaine shortage can all lead to bands forgoing the traditional encore format and just leaving outright after the last song of the set, or going off for a brief 30 second pause and coming right back out without waiting for the de rigueur standing ovation from the audience.
I’ve been to Bob Dylan shows where he did not do an encore. In fact, I saw him in Pittsburgh at a smaller outdoor venue where he looked at his watch halfway through a song, stopped singing, waved to the audience, said, “thank you and goodnight” and left.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, I was at a Bonnie Raitt show on her 30th(?) birthday where her encore turned into a full third set. A cop there for crowd control began opening the doors at the back of the venue. Bonnie yelled at the cop, “It’s my birthday and I’ll play as long as I want”.
Broken Social Scene last month was the only concert I can remember where they didn’t actually do this. I think at some point near the end they actually said we should just pretend they did it then. Makes sense as there was like a dozen of them and it seems like it’d be a hassle to pack everyone up and come back again. They did play for an incredibly long time, so I think everyone was fine with it.
But yes, it’s so standard now that it seems like it’s be hard for bands to drop it without upsetting anyone, even if they think it’s silly.
I remember seeing Dick Dale in Amsterdam some years ago. When he finished the set, he said: please don’t ask for an encore, we just played three and a half hours…there isn’t going to be one.
The Cars were notorious for their lack of stage presence. I saw them in Portland, Or., I don’t remember what year but it was when they were at the top of their game. Unlike some bands that sound off when you see them live, they sounded great, just like you expected. They really worked at the correct sound.
But, they walked onto the stage and said “Hello.” Played their set and then said “Thank You” and left. Best damn sounding live performance I have seen. Zero audience participation.
Yes, it seems like for most performers, an agreed upon tradition between them and the audience. The audience expects it, and the performers know they need to do it.
As a rule, at least from the mid-1980’s onward, the Jerry Garcia Band (Garcia’s primary “side-project” when he wasn’t touring with the Grateful Dead) almost never played encores after he finished his standard 2 set performances.
As he sang lead on all of the JGB’s songs, unlike with the Dead, where he traded off lead vocal duties with Bob Weir, (occasionally) Phil Lesh as well as the keyboard player, he claimed it was too strenuous on his vocal chords, although I saw him come back out for an encore at least a couple of times (both after a solid 5 minute uninterrupted call back from the crowd) most memorably outside of San Francisco at a Sunday afternoon show when he covered “What A Wonderful World” (faithful to the version that Louis Armstrong made famous) and then at a Halloween show in Oakland in 1993, his first live performance in 6 months after another serious health scare, when he covered Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London”, much to the great merriment of the audience.
Lately I’ve mostly been going to small acoustic performances. In those situations, it is not at all unusual for the performers to play their set(s) and end. The settings are generally pretty intimate, there is plenty of opportunity to interact w/ the performes at the merch table between/after sets. Sometimes there is even a post-performance jam. In that situation, I usually defer to the performer’s assessment of what is a fair amount of entertainment to provide. The idea that I’m going to keep clapping until you give me one more song strikes me as silly - almost greedy and demanding.
It’s like tipping. I wish there were rules, or at least clues.
I saw Cheap Trick in 1979. No seats - old school standing auditorium, where you had to get their early for a good [del] seat[/del] stand. (yes people got crushed, but no deaths. Didn’t see one girl in our group again until after the show - she got taken backstage due to the crush) They started late, and took a long time between the end of the show and the encore. Been standing for like 4-5 hours by then. After the first encore, the audience made noise for what seemed like ten minutes with nothing happening so I left. Missed the second encore. How long did they expect us to stand? Apparently, longer.
On the other was The Who, 1982. They did a set, but not sure about the encore. If they did it was short. I guess they didn’t think much of Iowa. Matter of fact, I don’t either, but I think they deserve just as good a performance as NYC.
In 1994, I saw a band called IQ at a local club. They played their set, then came out for an encore of a couple of songs, as expected. They left the stage again, the lights came up, and people started filing out - when suddenly the band came back out and played one more song.
On one of Marillion’s live albums, towards the end of the show the singer says something like “instead of playing this little game where we go off stage for a few minutes then come back out, we’re gonna just keep playing. Is that ok with you?”
Back around 1972, I saw Elvin Bishop in a festival setting. After he finished his final song, the band left the stage, but the audience clamored for more, so he returned and played the same song he had just finished playing. I got the impression that the band had been put together quickly and didn’t have time to rehearse anything other than the original set.
“Encore” does literally just mean “again,” after all.
Encores, like standing ovations, are no longer special things brought on by an audience’s reaction to an outstanding performance. They’re just routine social obligations.
Didn’t The Beatles usually have a “no encores” policy at their concerts as well?
The Simpsons parodied this trend in an episode; Nelson attended an Andy Williams concert, at the end of which, he remarked, “I thought he would never sing ‘Moon River’, but then, BAM!, second encore!”
Nothing More does this as well. Audience was happy, but still called for an encore, en though the lights had already come up.
I think for some bands it gives them a chance to put on a clean shirt, stop at the bathroom, and then play 3-5 more songs. Many bands will have an extended drum solo and then an acoustic part somewhere in the middle, which also gives the rest of the band a chance to get off the stage for a few minutes.