One advice: Please, don’t play somewhere where people will be eating and talking rather than listening to you. I feel terrible for those bands - and I hate those places because youc an’t have an actual conversation and nobody is actually listening to the band.
It sounds like your experience is different than mine. I’ve played in a couple bands here in the US and in Europe, and we never played more than 45-60 minute sets. It was original indie rock stuff for the latter band, and when I was in the band, we were on our first album (well, second technically, but there was a good deal of personnel change and time between one and two, so it was basically a completely different band but with the same singer/songwriter), so there wasn’t more than 45 minutes of material to really draw from anyway. And we generally headlined these shows. And almost all the bands we played with were exactly the same in terms of setlist times.
I don’t even think I’ve ever been to a bar or club to see a band I liked where the set was longer than an hour and a half or so. Maybe a big Pearl Jam or Metallica show, but most of the stuff I listen to? 60 min on average, 90 min tops.
Now, my friends that play in cover bands, it’s different. Those you are expected to play much longer sets and have a much deeper playlist.
Based on your OP title and OP, I’d say you need to stock up on more enthusiasm. 
To add to this point, tempo is crucial and you set the tempo. You will likely be a bit nervous and excited. This can cause you to play too fast. While it may feel good, it doesn’t sound good. Be mindful of tempo.
There seems to be plenty of advice, so let me add a story, but first some advice:
I’ve noticed that most of my playing-out stories are ‘War Stories’ (‘Horror Stories’). Someone once showed me a picture of myself playing, and I looked like I was having an orgasm!
All I remembered about that set was that our drummer broke his snare stand. (BTW, make friends with other bands playing the same night, they can lend you snare stands.) And, don’t forget to take a breath and enjoy, it’s a blast!
So, a ‘War Story:’
The various members of our band showed up at different times. I came with the van and the big stuff, as well as my guitar.
The other guitar player brought his guitar out to change strings and tuned to me. The other, other guitar player (yeah we had three guitars, how do YOU play Freebird?) tuned to the Bass player inside. It was cold outside, so when the ‘outside’ guitars came inside and warmed up, they went out-of-tune. The guitar with the new strings was again tuned to mine, as was the other-other guitar.
By the time we started, I don’t think anyone with a stringed instrument was in tune with another (amateurs!). We followed the never-stop-playing rule and tried to get things together, but we were bad.
Long Story Short, the exception to the Never-Stop-Playing rule is when a blitzed frat-boy bolts from the audience to throw a beer on the lead singer and the other guitar player chases him back into the audience with murderous rage (the other-other guitar player was a bit too stoned to care).
A good way to find out if you’re ready to play in public is to go to an open mic. You get the experience of playing in front of an audience for only three or four songs without the pressure of having to perform for a whole night’s gig, and the audience is usually a little more forgiving. It worked like a charm for me when I was in the same situation as you are.
My only advice is don’t become like Justin or Myley.
Watch your tempo. You get all excited and you start rushing. All of a sudden the rest of the band is going WTF struggling to play their parts because you’re going so fast. Or you rush through a fill and things get off. Or you start off too fast or too slow right off the bat. Pay attention! The distressed look on your bandmate’s face can tell the tale.
Watch your volume as others have said. You volume level should fit in nicely with the other players. Of course it’s important to be able to hear the rest of the band in the first place, so make sure you’re set up so you can hear.
Make sure you have extra sticks in a stick bag or whatever. If you drop a stick and can’t get to it you’re kinda f%^ked unless you have spares.
Make sure the attached bits to your pedals are tight. Your hi-hat top cymbal clamp, kick drum beater, etc. It sucks when you’re flapping your foot and there’s nothing but air. Over time you will learn to maintain a backbeat with your left hand while you effect a repair with your right. This skill also applies to beer-drinking.
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I’ve noticed that most of my playing-out stories are ‘War Stories’ (‘Horror Stories’). Someone once showed me a picture of myself playing, and I looked like I was having an orgasm!
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I’ve seen pictures and videos of myself and I look either mean or bored. I could be having the time of my life and I look like I’m about to shit a brick.
One of my favorite war stories was when we were playing at a beer + barbecue shed at a rodeo (Cheyenne Frontier Days) and the power kept crapping out in the building. We’d stop, wait around for the power to come back on, then start playing again. This got old pretty quickly. The power went out again and the band leader said “keep playing!” so we kept playing and when the power came on we came right up ‘in progress’. Great fun! (guess you had to be there). At the end of the week we got paid like $3500 all in $5 bills so we rolled out of Cheyenne with these ridiculous stacks of money (a problem I’d like to have more often).
One last thing - it’s easy to invite people on stage for whatever reason. It’s harder to make them leave. Especially if they’re drunk cowboys and you’re a musician.
Yeah, I’ve been in quite a few bands, and played with legions more. It’d be unusual for any of them to have more than two sets of material, and almost all did a 45-60 minute set when I played with them. Cover bands are a different story, as they usually get booked for the whole night.
Hehehehe, I bet that was the Trail Dust. They’ll cut your tie off for you, too.
The Capt’s advice is all very good advice. I will go ahead and add that almost every guitarist ever will fight with him on #1, but that’s just how it works. I’d like to emphasize his advice to be good to the sound guy - he controls you. Set up quick, adhere to the schedule as closely as you can (don’t sit around “until a few more people get here”, play your allotted slot), and when you communicate with him, be nice. If you just generally don’t like the sound guy, keep it to your goddamn self. Your bitching is not going to get the sound guy replaced unless your band personally hired him. Most sound guys have more than one gig, and they talk. If you’re difficult to work with, word gets around.
And it’s a hijack, but why do I have to wait 2 more years before it’s acceptable to use my SM57 for vocals? 
(I’m smiling because I’m clueless, I really don’t know.)
This is good advice too. Most open mic nights give everyone 15 minutes or so, but if you want to do one song, you probably can.
But if you do it, please don’t decide to your 30-40 minute spoken word recital of “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner” with piano accompaniment. I have seen this, it will actually clear the room on an open mic night. It wasn’t a spoken word version of the Iron Maiden song - that would have been much better.
ETA: And in most stage pics, I look like a person who’s just seen god, and is having a fit as a result. My eyes are all wide, and I don’t dance with any coordination between body parts. I’ve gotten over how I look on stage, I think.
Remember there are a lot of bands out there trying to get gigs, be on time be polite etc!
Get an amp that goes to 11.
Never fucking play “Stonehenge”.
Remember that D-minor is the saddest of all keys.
Scabpicker the bit about the SM57 was an inside joke. In the bad old days, when PA was really heavy and did not sound all that good, the frequencies around 4k-5k were hard to produce, small woofers were too big and the tweeters too small (I am over simplifying). Along came the SM57, low handling noise, ability to take high SPLs(volume), durable(you can drive a nail with one and it still will work) and a big boost around 4k-5k. This is the top end of Human vocal clarity range, the place where words become distinct. So you now have a mic that allows singers to be clearly heard and a couple of generations of singers learned to love them. They also have good off axis rejection(don’t pick up sounds from the side) and a small pickup pattern(you have to be close). This means your monitor mix can be louder, in fact you might be able to hear yourself over your guitar player who is going to violate rule #1 often(every effing night).
They have distinct disadvantages and have fallen into disuse as vocal mics, except those who learned to use them and are still playing. I used 83’ as an arbitrary cutoff date for starting playing. Why this is a joke…
I worked a show for Faster Pussycat
Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster_Pussycat
Band Site ::warning autoplay audio::
http://www.fasterpussycat.com/
The drummer left his vocal mic, a beat up, old and nasty and I mean nasty, SM57. When I found it, IIRC by smell, it was segregated because the grille was filled with a yellow/brown film and smelled like a Zombie in the high Georgia heat.
The guy contacts me and wants the me to send the mic, NOW EMERGENCY BECAUSE HE HAS HAD IT SINCE 1983 AND HAS A SHOW, so I do.
This costs $20 or $30, you can have a new, identical one for around $80
It is funny to me
Capt
Capt You meant a ’58 there right?
I did the sound for John Otway a few times. Part of his act meant that he actually managed to…
break SM58s :eek:
Advice and war stories coming up…
The John Otway thing, he had a song Headbuts where he would headbut the mike. Repeatedly. He also played SM58 cricket using his SG as a bat. He brought his own mikes, they were unsurprisingly in bad shape. We declined when he asked to use ours. He offered to replace them with new as he had some deal (an endorsement?) with Shure but we were going to need them the next day and it looked like they might not survive the set.
Advice for a drummer? I’m not sure. Have some spare sticks. Come to that have some sticks (yes I have turned up to a band gig where my drummer had forgotten to bring any sticks). I suppose that really boils down to make sure your gear works. You can fix things with gaffer tape and string on the day but you should be turning up with a kit in working shape.
Already been said… get the guitar player to play quieter. A smaller amp might help.
Faster Pussycat, eh? You ever work with an SF band from the same era, Head On? Part of the same crowd. Friends of mine.
Yes, those Shures are great - I’m sure I have a couple in the bottom of my gig bag now ;). Between those, Telecasters and P-Basses, and the simpler Fender amps - Deluxe Reverb, etc - you could throw it all into a van and go…
End the night with a lullaby. Something like [this](rock a bye baby dazed and confused).
Reminds me of playing at a party where the band set up in an barn. There were two generators, one for the lights and one for the sound set up. The generator for the lights ran out of gas in the middle of a song. We just kept on playing.
We couldn’t see each other so there was no real cue to stop or make any serious change, so we vamped for a little while with a few little flourishes here and there. It couldn’t have more than a minute or so—no Mountain Jam—but when the lights came back up, the people went crazy.
We considered adding it to our light show for future events.
I’m a performing songwriter and usually play solo, so I don’t have any advice specific to band performances, and others have chimed in with lots of great advice.
You sound ambivalent about performing. Is this something you really want to do?
Thanks for all the replies, everyone. I’ll refer to this thread a lot. Great stuff. I’ve always wanted to perform, so now that it looks like it might happen I just need to get serious about it while still having fun. I’m looking forward to the experience
Small Clanger I was really talking about 57s. Funny thing about people who sing into a 57, because of how close you have to get to it, they often smash into it and it tends to cut their upper lip. This leaves a mark very similar to the burns crackheads get from their pipes.
WordMan I have heard of them but I don’t remember working with them.
Pine Fresh Scent Have a good gig
Cheers
Capt