Tell me about it. I doubt I would have been as pissed off If I hadn’t have been in the band that were going on after them. It didn’t affect me in the end, as we were only toing a 30 minute set, but the band that followed us ended up only with 25 minutes because of their overrun and encore.
Yep.
I saw Corey Harris recently at a small blues club called Moondog’s. The band did a 90 minute set, then came back for a one hour set. The crowd was loud, and the band came back out for a 30 minute encore.
For some reason the crowd kept cheering. Corey came back out and did another full set solo acoustic (his band was beat). After that he sat around and talked for a while.
Wow.
I hate the fake encore as well. It’s just stupid. Fucking stupid.
Madonna started doing the “fake encore” on her Drowned World Tour. It was a signal to the audience to GO HOME ALREADY. She didn’t spend the night in any of the towns she played, so she had a plane to catch to her apartment in NYC, and no time to spare. Not that an encore would have been possible anyway, since a show like hers is planned and choreographed for every single nanosecond.
Dar Williams did a sorta-planned encore when she visited my little wee Ontario town. We cheered and clapped until she crept back up to her mic and said; “Just one second, I’ll be right back.” She went into one of the wings and came back out wearing a t-shirt that read; “Canadian Girls Kick Ass”. Then she sang O Canada Girls. Then was the non-planned encore, when she got her opening act, Jian Gomeshi (formerly of Moxy Fruvous), back her up on The Christians And The Pagans.
That was the best concert I’ve ever been to.
Um, she did it because it’s entertaining, and she’s chosen to be an entertainer.
It doesn’t bother you when she says “I love you, Cincinatti,” when you know tomorrow she’ll be swearing her love to Toledo, does it?
No, but it would bug me if she didn’t know how to spell her lover’s name correctly. 
Maybe what bugs me is that concerts have become so over-packaged and over-planned that Cincinnati’s show IS the absolute same show you’ll see in Toledo, right down to the planned encore. There’s a phoniness to it, an MTVness about it, that cheapens the live experience. I can’t really blame the performers for getting so bored they don’t know what city they’re in.
Compare this to someone like Mellencamp or Springsteen. Each concert may have roughly the same playlist, but as artists they listen to, and respond to, the mood of the crowd. The audience sets the pace by their reaction so that they become a participant rather than just a spectator. Seeing Springsteen at the Meadowlands is a completely different experience than seeing him in Philly because he allows for spontaneity, an elasticity that makes each show unique. The energy is so different that he might play an hour longer at one place than the other. He might come out for one encore, zero encores, or even three. That’s what makes the live experience special.
Choreographing everything right down to the encore is wrong on so many levels.
If I wanted to see some glossy, pre-packaged show, I’d just buy the video. Not only is it a fair bit cheaper, but my husband wouldn’t have to strain himself trying to get a better view of Shania’s belly button.