Over the years in local music, I’ve seen some pretty crazy things with other bands and solo performers. I really do believe some music artists take themselves way too seriously. In this post, I’m about to explain what you do need and don’t need when performing on the stage whether it will be a full band or just an acoustic performer.

What you don’t need on the performing stage…

• Props & gimmicks – You don’t need stage props. Get rid of ’em. You don’t need ridiculous smoke machines or any of those silly DJ/stage lighting. You don’t need microphone scarfs.  You don’t need ridiculous banners with your band name on it to hang up behind you, don’t need scrims, and you don’t need your band name on the drum head either. Bands use all kinds of silly props on stage. It’s nuts. On top of that, I find smoke machines pretty silly and too distracting. I played a show where it had a smoke machine once and I almost wanted to stop my performance because of it. I understand that smoke machines try to make you look cool and badass but the smoke distracts your playing.
  
• Image – You don’t need to look all pretty and special on stage. The women don’t need to be wearing make-up and they don’t need to make their hair look all gorgeous when I’m sure they already do look gorgeous the way they are. As for the male musicians, they don’t need to be looking all that pretty on stage either. Men don’t need to be wearing make up either. Men have worn makeup on stage and even eye-liner. As for the tattoos, that’s alright ’cause you can’t do anything about the tattoos and that’s who they are but you don’t really need to worry about how good you look at all. If you don’t take your looks seriously, the audience will tell you if you look good or not. Don’t force the looks onto you.
• Strict guidelines of clothing or fashion – I’ve seen bands who will wear nothing but a suit and tie at all of their shows. I’ve seen bands who will wear nothing but black leather. I’ve seen punk rock and glam bands who will wear the goofiest clothing ever. There are tons of rock bands and in different genres that wear the strangest clothing on stage. I understand that you need to dress to fit the genre of music you play but in reality, it doesn’t matter. I never cared what I wore on stage. I’ll just wear what I have on now. The only times you want to play dress up is when you play a wedding reception or a school dance party. Those are the times when you want to play dress up occasionally but other than that, you don’t need to play dress-up in local music. This isn’t WWE or the circus.
• A lot of gear on stage – I’ve seen plenty of bands who brings out all kinds of gear on stage, and when I see this, I’m like, WTF are all these toys for? They would bring out so much shit. More than just amps and a bunch of pedals. Quite honestly, I really think some bands brings all kinds of gear on stage just for show. Being show offs, nothing more. Especially the really expensive gear. All you need is a few guitars, a few amps, a few guitar pedals. They don’t really need to be expensive equipment either. Being a local musician you don’t really need to be buying $5,000 – $10,000 equipment when you can really get good enough sounding gear for the stage with a budget around $300 – $700.
• Long speeches or stories in between songs – I absolutely hate when bands & artists do this. Ramble on and on and on and on… please. A lot of musicians would like to tell the story behind the song. Even worse toward the end of their sets, they would take a long time introducing each band members and a bunch of thank you’s. You don’t need to take up so much time explaining yourself. All you need to do is just say the name of the song and just play. I remember when the Ramones were around, they never talked in between songs on stage. They played one song after another with no breaks. We need more bands like that. If you want to tell a story behind a song and how you wrote it, just make it brief and quick. You don’t need to make it into a 10 – 15 minute speech.
• Dancing girls who are not musically talented – I’ve seen plenty of bands where they have hired girls dance on stage with them, and they actually consider them as a member of a band even if they are not musically talented at all. They don’t even sing or anything. They just dance on stage for show. Quite frankly, this could be the only reason people come to see your shows, and not for the actual music ’cause of those hot dancing women you hired. You don’t need girls to dance on stage with you if you want people to appreciate your music. If you have dancing girls at your shows, then you probably suck musically.
• Drinking on stage – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve witnessed this over the years. Too many drunken bands out there! You don’t need to get wasted to put on a good show. Seriously, guys. Please consider this. Try playing on stage sober for once. I’m pretty sure you would be able to play a lot better!!!
• Having an attitude on stage – Don’t swear too much. Don’t say too many offensive things. Don’t respond to the hecklers. Leave your ego at the door. Shut up and play the music!
• Uncut guitar strings on stage – I’ve talked about this before and still stand by it too. I also, still see this going on. Whether you’re a guitar player or bass player, bands just don’t care to cut their strings. They just let ’em hang out or curl them on the headstock of their instrument. You don’t need to be looking like that as it can be annoying and it also kind of shows that you don’t know much about guitar when you think you do. You must cut your strings. It should only take a few seconds to grab a pair of wire cutters and cut the tip of your strings on the headstock. Not only that you look silly with uncut strings, it’s also dangerous as the strings can easily poke someone in the eye. I believe these bands don’t cut their strings ’cause it’s their way of trying to look cool and badass. It’s just rude and disrespectful. Don’t do it.
• Hiring expensive videographers or photographers – It’s cool that you want better quality videos of your live performances and live photos but you don’t need to be hiring overpriced videographers or photographers. Since technology has gotten so popular these days, you should let the fans take the pics of you and record your gigs with their mobile phones instead — a lot of that stuff seems to be going on these days. Fan photos and fan made videos may not be as good quality but that stuff is cheaper too.

What you do need on the performing stage…

• Good music – After all of the above, all you really need is a good set of songs and performing them live on the stage. You don’t need the stuff explained above. All you need is your instrument and the songs you need to perform them. People won’t care about the garbage I explained above… they just want to hear the music. It’s just as simple as that, folks!
  

Enjoy!

Kev