[00:00:00] Welcome to episode 120 of the Bandhive podcast. it is time for another episode of the Bandhive podcast. My name is James Cross here with a solo episode for you.

And I'm really excited today for two reasons. One being that if COVID doesn't throw any unpleasant surprises our way today on March 15th, I will be in Germany, visiting my family for the first time in two years. So I'm really happy about that. you know, it's been too long, thanks to the pandemic.

It's been too long since I've been over there. But secondly I get to talk about one of my favorite bands today. So I'm really excited about that because this episode is going to be all about how you can get more fans when you're playing your live shows My favorite band, they broke up eight years ago and it still hurts, but it's the best live show I've ever seen.

And I saw them in like a 200, maybe 300 cap venue. So you don't need to be, Bring Me the Horizon or Paramore or any kind of arena act to have an amazing live show. Obviously, you know, [00:01:00] having all that production helps, but you can absolutely melt people's minds, playing small clubs. The difference is you need to be amazing with your stage presence to do that.

All the artists playing arenas and amphitheaters, they have tons of technology and production and dancers and all that kind of stuff to fall back on you as a DIY artists don't have that. You are the entertainment, and that is what we're going to talk about today. So if you want to get more fans for your band by playing shows.

I've got good news and I've got bad news. The bad news is no one cares. If you can stand still on stage and play punk songs or whatever it kind of music you play, anyone can do that. Literally anyone can learn how to play an instrument and get out. and before I hear somebody say well, but what if somebody doesn't have hands?

No, trust me. I knew. And guitarist who could play with his feet. I mean like leads with his [00:02:00] feet. anybody can learn to play an instrument if they truly set their minds to it. Playing an instrument does not make you special. the good news is that it's really easy to stand out in your performance and create a catchy engaging performance that hooks people and turns them into fans. It takes a lot of practice, but you can do. So, what does it take to stand out with your live performances?

Well, the first thing is I already said it practice, but it's not just practicing your songs. You need to rehearse your performance as a band to create that extra energy focused less on perfectly playing each note and more on building up the energy in your set, specifically the. That's exchanging between you and your audience.

And I have three great examples for this from a solo act to a band where one member does most of the specialty stuff to a band where the [00:03:00] entire band was just amazing. And that's my favorite band of all time. So, first of all, we're just going to start with a solo act and I want to say shout out to Bandhive, listener, Ben Chaverin.

Ben does flips onstage during his performance to keep things interesting. He goes up there with his voice and an acoustic guitar and does a show. And then he'll just bust out a flip all of a sudden, that is sick. How many people have you seen doing a solo acoustic set?

And then all of a sudden they're doing a flip, probably none. Right? Unless you've seen Ben live or maybe there's some other people who have. But Ben is the only person I've ever seen do that as a solo act. And that is sick. This just goes to show that even if you're a solo act, you can do something to spice up your set.

I'm not saying, go learn how to do a flip. I'm saying you can do something. alternately the band new politics. There are three piece from Denmark. They have a singer and guitarist and a drummer. That's it, super basic band. They backtrack their base and sense all that kind of stuff.

They take it to the next [00:04:00] level because they interact with their audience really well, but they also have a break dance built into the set for the singer who he was, or probably still is a professional dancer. And. They just give them like two or three minutes to do a break dance on stage back in their earlier days, they would actually have him come down onto the floor and clear some space.

Now that's not so easy. Uh, First of all, with COVID, but also just because they're playing bigger shows and making a gap big enough on the floor is not as easy when there's that many more fans in the venue, either way. It provides a unique experience for the show, rather than just three guys standing on stage playing their instruments.

They bring a new level of energy to the performance. They're obviously moving around stage the whole time as well, except for the drummer because he's sitting behind his kit, but the steering of the guitarists are moving around. They're dancing, they're having fun. And you can see that as the audience last but not least in these examples.

In my opinion, they are the [00:05:00] best live band of the past decade. Pure Love. Frank Carter is the singer of Pure Love or was rather he's now in a new band. Pure Love had a very short life. They were around for just about three years, but during that time they made a massive. Impact. They were honestly like, even on the band was just Frank and Jim Carroll, who was also played in American nightmare and the hope conspiracy and tons of hardcore bands, even though it was just the two of them, as far as writing and being in the band goes, their live band was a supergroup.

They had members of Ghost of a Thousand, Sikth, Tom Michener, who is a producer, all kinds of great musicians rotated through that band over their short lifespan. After the band broke up. Frank Carter formed a new band called Frank Carter and the rattlesnakes. I'm sure they're just as amazing live, but I couldn't tell you, cause I haven't had the chance to see them yet.

They're now one of the biggest bands in the UK they've played running and leads multiple times. They've opened for foo fighters and they had a number one album in the UK rock charts, which was number [00:06:00] four overall in the UK. That's huge. They've done that in six, seven years. They formed in 2015, just a year after Pure Love broke up.

Absolutely amazing band, but Pure Love is where my heart is. No pun intended. I was lucky enough to see Pure Love live once on their farewell tour. I said, I cannot live my life, having not seen them. So I flew over to Birmingham, England and saw the show and it was amazing. it's literally the best live show I have ever seen.

Met up with a couple of friends there, saw the show. And when I say flew over, I was already in Germany. So it's not like I flew across the Atlantic, although I probably would have, it would have been worth it, but it was like a $200 plane ticket from Germany. So it was a no brainer. They're live shows were so intense.

The entire band crowd surfed at various times at their final show, not the one I was at, but a few days later, their absolute final show. They crowd surfed the drummer with his drums. They had circle pits and amazing crowd interaction. There's actually a video [00:07:00] of all of this crazy stuff going on at their last show.

If you go to Bandhive.rocks/120, that's the numbers one two zero I'll have a link to their final show in there, their videographer filmed the whole thing and put it up on his Vimeo. So definitely check that out, watch it and take notes of what you can do for your own show. That venue has maybe a three to 400 cap.

I would guesstimate by looking at the video. I don't know for sure, but somewhere in that range, so you don't need to be a massive band in a massive venue to absolutely slay. Again, bandhive.rocks/120 to see that now, obviously not every band is going to have a packed room, like Pure Love did in that video.

So you might not want to stage dive because you could end up like Jack Black in the beginning of a School of Rock. And that would not be a good thing. Especially if you break your instruments or bones or do any damage to yourself or anything like that. But a lot of [00:08:00] things that they do, you can apply. For example, one of the biggest things that I loved about Pure Love's set is they didn't just walk out on stage and start playing their song.

They had a short, but building intro where the band walked out and started just playing getting the audience to clap. And then after they got the audience excited, all of a sudden the guitar starts the main riff of the album opener. Frank runs out on stage deals, London. We are Pure Love, which in my case was Birmingham, but same difference.

And then Frank does a front flip into the crowd. that's insane. That is how you start a show. You go out there, you do your thing and you make it an experience. You're not just up there playing your songs. You are performing. So lead into your set with an intro, get your fans hyped up, get them moving before you start playing your song.

If they're already warmed up, ignore the opening bands like. That's great if they got people warmed up [00:09:00] amazing, but with a 15 minute, 20 minute changeover, all that energy is zapped already. So you have to get that energy back up and you have to do it quickly before your first song starts.

Especially if you're playing to people who don't know you yet get that energy into them, have that intro and really pump people up. Again, go to Bandhive.rocks/120. I'll have a link to the video there so you can see exactly what I'm talking about with their little intro there.

And if you want to look up the song it's called "She" by Pure Love. That'll be in the show notes as well. So you can see the difference between the actual intro of the song and the intro to their show and how it blends into the song. Another great move is teaching your audience, the chorus to song before it starts.

And it encouraging them to sing along. It could be just a few words or it could be some woahs, whatever it is, you know, like. Uh, I'm trying to remember if Frank Turner did this, not Frank Carter, Frank Turner, different guy, also British. But he's got the song that's like to the east, to the east. I think he taught people [00:10:00] that when I saw him live, I can't remember for sure, but getting them.

Engaged with you something catchy because if they're singing along and they notice everyone else is having a great time and singing along to that brings your fans together, or that I should say brings your audience together and it could turn them into fans.

And that's what you want. When you're playing a live show. You want fans to feel better than they've ever felt. and my final and simplest suggestion when you're playing move around, if you stand in one spot, eh, whatever, but if you're moving from one side of the stage to the other, you're jumping, you're laughing, you're having fun.

That's great. If you look bored and nervous, people notice that, and they're going to be bored as well. But if you look like you're having more fun than you've ever had, the audience will love it. It doesn't matter if the audience is watching Green Day play an arena or your little DIY band in a hundred cap club, if they can see that you're having an amazing time, the audience will be having the time of their [00:11:00] life.

That does it for this episode of the Bandhive podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening. If you haven't already, please go ahead and subscribe in your favorite podcast app. So you get these episodes every week. We drop a new on every Tuesday at 6:00 AM and you will get all the tips that we discuss on our episodes, whether it's interviews, solo episodes like this, or when my cohost Matt gets back from maternity leave, we'll be talking a lot more about collaborative stuff between the two of us, because I'm the touring expert, he's the marketing expert.

And we go back and forth between the two and not to mention when mats around. And I tend to make a lot of very corny band puns and song ponds. So if you want to hear those stick around Matt, we'll be back in a few weeks. I hope in the meantime, we'll be back next Tuesday at 6:00 AM Eastern right here in your favorite podcast app until then I hope you have a great week stay safe.

And of course, as always keep rockin'.