Testing 1-2-3… How to Get Your Audience to Embrace Your Content

It’s been a few years since I’ve been up on stage as a musician. I’ve been in a lot of bands over my years and the last two were called the Pretzel Boys and Dough. The Pretzel Boys was a full band with drums and PA systems. Dough was a two-man acoustic band. The reason we called ourselves Dough is because pretzels uncooked are made of what? Dough. And “Dough” is two for the duo.

The biggest thing about being in a band is you learn how to read your audience. For example, we’d usually play three sets a night and it would be about a three-hour gig. The first set sets the tone of the evening. You get people warmed up a little bit, play some songs they know, maybe some songs they don’t know, and you pay attention to what they are responding to.

Not every band has the same experience every single night. If your band plays original music, you tend to have setlists. If you’re playing other people’s music, you have more flexibility to adapt. So if the audience liked The Beatles that night, the second set, we would modify it to do more Beatles. If they like Tom Petty one night, we would do more Tom Petty.