I went to see Elvis Costello in 1987 (I believe), when he was touring with Nick Lowe. They were both playing solo. Lowe did his set, then Costello took over and did a decent set of about 45 minutes. (Remember, most of his songs are quite short.) The couple we were with left before the encore to beat the traffic.
When Costello came back on stage after a few minutes, he brought his big wheel out and invited audience members to come up and spin it to select what songs he would play. (One bright guy, when asked what his name was, replied, “Declan MacManus.”) Anyway,Costello continued this for at least another 30 minutes. He finally left the stage and the reappeared with Lowe to do “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding?” as a second encore.
When they learned of this, the couple who left earlier went absolutely nuts.
It would be funny if a performance sucked so bad that when the band came out for the obligatory encore, folks started booing and yelling “Get off the stage!”
I’ve seen Dick Dale. He’s great but Sheesh. I bet he could have improved the show by 50% if he took a little break at 3 hours and called the rest an encore. No harm no foul nothing to gripe about.
I know you’re asking what YEAR, but when I read this I was reminded of when I saw him. He started the cape routine about halfway through the first song. A LITTLE too early for a, “Can’t do no more!” routine, in my opinion. The crowd’s as well, it seemed. He was the headliner at an all-day show and ppl were leaving.
I’m not sure that there’s any particular etiquette or expectations of encores at classical music concerts. If there’s a “big draw” soloist, it’s more likely than not, but not always. I was at a performance with Joyce Di Donato as the star soloist in the first half, but though the audience loved the performance and didn’t want to let her go - no encore. But the orchestra (the National Youth Orchestra of the USA as it happens ) did at the end of the whole concert. I’ve been at BBC Proms concerts where both happened - and sometimes the encore can be even more memorable than the performance that inspired the audience applause in the first place: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpN2k5zz81o
what they did was play all the mid 80s and 90s new and newer stuff first it was about 90 minutes and they said good night and everyone was looking like WTF… wheres the old stuff everyone went for? … that was the encore they played the old stuff in 3-4 song burst and acting like it was over every 20 minutes for an hour in a half until mick said …" anything else we missed? no? ok goodnight for real and thanks fir making this fun ater all these years …
I heard about Boston after they only had 1 album out played all the songs and then did an encore with a few more songs. Then they said “we don’t have anything else to play” and left.
Led Zeppelin comeback in the 90s (actually Page and Plant No Quarter Unledded era). 20 000 people in the arena, fantastic atmosphere, fantastic concert.
After the set, people were clapping and screaming, screaming, screaming for 45 minutes, refusing to leave, but the band did not come back.
I heard later that Jimmy Page saw a red dot from a laser pointer on him and got scared.
My favorite encore story, which I’ve probably told here before, isn’t quite like that, but still insulting (and deservedly so) to the band.
This would have been at the WHFStival in 1999 or 2000, a full day of one band after another, each doing just a handful of songs before relinquishing the stage to the next band. The concluding act was the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They’re a good band, but they pretty much phoned it in that evening. The stadium was already starting to empty during their last number, and by the time they came out for their encore, the stadium was maybe half empty, and the half that was still there were mostly trying to leave. Nobody was making noise to try to get the band to come out for the encore, but it must’ve been in the contract, because they came out after the usual wait, and played their encore as what was left of the crowd headed for the exits.
Blue Man Group lampshades this in their How to be a Megastar tour: Rock Concert Movement #78 – The Fake Ending. It provided a break between the high-energy I Feel Love and the elegiac Exhibit 13. The images are papers that fell from the sky at BMG headquarters in Brooklyn on September 11, 2001.
Several years ago I saw John Lee Hooker play in a small club, and he did the expected encore thing and left the stage. But the audience was having none of it, we kept stomping, cheering, and carrying on for several minutes after he left the stage the second time (and the house lights had come up) until he finally brought the band back out, said “Y’all are crazy” and played Boom Boom again (probably because they were out of songs that the band had practiced). I think it might have been the most genuinely spontaneous encore I’ve ever seen.
I guess you’ve never been to the opera, where critical audience members (the fanboys of the operatic world) will either boo unmercifully or worse, make the hapless performer sing a problematic aria over again until they get it right.
I saw Lynard Skynard open for ZZ Top in Pittsburgh years ago. I was with a friend who worked for RCA. She said we could go backstage after the show “if I wanted”.
It was a weeknight show. Near the end of ZZ Top’s set, she told me the bands would be doing a combined encore, and it would be a full set. She had to get up early the next morning, was tired, so she left.
I stayed for the entire show (it was great) but without her I couldn’t go backstage.
I was fortunate enough to have gotten the chance to see John Lee Hooker twice before he passed, both times in San Francisco, both times alongside Van Morrison, the first time only as an unannounced special guest who Van brought out for just a couple of songs, but the second time in June of 1999 was at a one day music festival in Golden Gate Park, sponsored by Guinness that featured “Irish” music and culture.
It was quite a day, with music simultaneously on 3 different stages, including John Prine, Ben Harper & Innocent Criminals, Dave Alvin, Elvis Costello, Richard Thompson, Martin Sexton, Taj Mahal and a dozen others.
I remember that nearly every act that I saw made a point of mentioning what an honor it was for them to share a stage with a living legend like John Lee Hooker, which I am sure made Van Morrison really happy…
