Setlist Thought Process
After spending time during the day to construct a set list, you might wonder, why does the set list sometimes change as it gets played out? I thought I'd give a little bit of insight with some of the different reasons things go down the way they do.
There are a lot of different reasons why things change. Sometimes we're feeding off the energy of the room and want a different direction or we've naturally arrived at another song's groove. But I would say the vast majority of changes have to do with curfew issues. Sometimes it's hard to predict when an extended 20 minute version of a song will emerge and things get stretched out, affecting the next things we've plotted. Over the years, we've grown to realize that it's generally better to take our time with a section or improvisation rather than squeeze too much into a set. And for some songs, they're just more likely to get cut. All Things Ninja, 13 Days and Out of Order are the most popular ones to fall into that distinguished category, and sometimes, it's been almost comical as we've cut a particular song three to four nights in a row. We've also established the "cut spot" in the set list, usually the 2nd or 3rd to last slot where things will be most likely to get the axe. That's where you'll see Ninja all the time. So, onto some examples.
The set list that starts with Bridgeless, which was from Eureka on the West coast tour is a good example of making a curfew adjustment. In the first set, we had a few points of improvisation, and by the time we got to where 2nd Self and Cold Smoke were supposed to happen, we were going to go well over the length the set was supposed to be, and we had only allowed for a 20 minute set break as it was. The groove we had reached in Utopian Fir was a similar tempo to Uncle Wally, so I suggested we segue into Wally instead, keeping the flow going and allowing us to end the set with the 2nd half of Bridgeless, keeping the set sandwich alive. In the 2nd set of this show, we felt that Thin Air was going to be too mellow for that point in the night and elected to skip ahead to Smell the Mitten, a funkier tune. By the time we got to the end of Nirvana's In Bloom, we felt we needed something that grooved a little bit harder and had more edge than The Fuzz, and were able to use Red Tape, one of our more open-ended songs from the Mantis material, to get back to JaJunk.
Another interesting and very altered set list happened at Las Tortugas night one in Yosemite during our Halloween run. Earlier in the day, we got word that Bill Kreutzmann of the Grateful Dead was interested in sitting in, so we invited him to our rehearsal that night in our cabin. We taught Bill Professor Wormbog and even rehearsed it with him, so the sit in seemed like it was a lock. Alas, Bill didn't feel very well by 3 am, and we had to wait until Saturday to get him up on the kit. But Ivan Neville was hangin out side of stage at that point. He's added keys to many shows in the past, and is a lot of fun to collaborate with. So Jake, Brendan and Ryan discussed how to best make it happen in the talkback mics while I worked with Bob to fix some gear between songs. We did the Police track When the World Is Running Down You Make the Best of What's Still Around to bring the tempo back up and then started Utopian Fir, which sequed into Glory. Ivan came out at the end of Glory and killed it. We had a blast tradin riffs with him as usual. Having him at the end of Glory gave us a good opportunity to groove with him in the key of E and get back to the final section of Utopian before launching into Plunger to end the set on a dynamic and powerful section. Sometimes it can be a bit of a challenge to alter a set list on the spot that works in the time you're given, but occasionally, it works out perfectly like it did at Yosemite, and the flow of the night goes just where it needs to go.
The discussion in the talkback microphones as this unfolded:
The other West coast set list example is from Spokane, where the first set again ran longer than we anticipated. Instead of forcing an abbreviated finish to the 2nd half of DBK, which we knew we could finish later, we decided to take our time with The Triple Wide and use that as a set closer. At some point in The Triple Wide, we brought up the potential set list change in the talk backs and then extended the improvisation and really tried to make the most of the moment there. We've really enjoyed opening up Professor Wormbog lately, and we skipped ahead to that one in the 2nd set as we were feeling the audience needed some more "Groof" as Jens Hannemann, satirical drummer/comedian would say. And then we found a good spot to return to DBK and finish the song after the improvisation that followed Intentions Clear. We felt ending the set with Comfortably Numb would work instead of Plunger, as it's one of our more recognizable covers with a crushing guitar solo finish.
We again ran into some curfew issues at the end of this show. We ideally need about 3:30 total to play a comfortable show, but sometimes that can't happen if there is an early curfew on a weekday where you don't want to start a show too early. The main thing is that we try to set ourselves up to play as much as we can for you guys in every scenario. In this case, we decided to nix Ringo from the encore slot as we only had about 12 minutes before hard curfew, which wouldn't allow Ringo to flourish in all of the ways possible. At the same time, we wanted to play as much music as possible for the fans, so we came up with the idea of playing Got Your Milk > Walletsworth. It was certainly a unique encore, and while Ringo wasn't able to happen this time, saving it for a space better suited toward taking our time through the sections seemed like a good call.
Talkback montage of setlist banter:
I hope that gives you a little insight into how things can shift around for us and how we go about changing the original plan. In the topsy turvy world of rock n roll, you can never be sure what lies just around the corner.
-joel