A review of the Rush Time Machine Tour concert at USANA Amphitheatre in Salt Lake City on August 10, 2010. With Set List.
Alex Lifeson's Time Machine Guitar Amplifiers
Rush, one of the greatest live bands of all time, is on tour this summer. The tour is called the “Time Machine” tour and I got the chance to catch their show at USANA Amphitheatre in Salt Lake City on August 5, 2010. I really hate the traffic and parking situation at USANA Amphitheatre and I avoid going to any concerts there because of that. It takes a special band like Rush to get me to brave the traffic nightmare of USANA Amphitheatre. Continue reading “Rush Time Machine Tour At USANA Amphitheatre Concert Review”
Keep your show moving by having a plan in place for song changes, stage banter and instrument problems.
Matt, Ted and Tom Keep The Show Moving
I’ve played in a lot of different live bands over the years and one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced is keeping the show moving along at nice pace. What I mean is minimizing space between songs, also known as Dead Air. Dead air happens between songs and can be a serious show killer. If you aren’t engaging your crowd, you’re losing them and that’s a bad thing.
There are some key ways to minimize dead air between songs. The most important is to have a well organized, printed set list for every person in the band. When you plan your setlist it’s a good idea to group songs into sets of 3 that are easy to transition from song to song. When setting up a group of 3 songs you can group them by instrument changes, tunings, singer rotation or effect settings. After awhile, your band will remember what songs are grouped together in three’s and be able to transition quickly between those songs. This makes it easy to tweak your set list on the fly and still maintain some continuity by keeping the 3-song sets together. Continue reading “Keep Your Show Moving And Minimize Dead Air”
One of the biggest challenges of playing in a cover band is the simple act of song selection. This simple task can make or break any band. A well chosen song list can give your band the edge in a very competitive cover band market. So how do you choose a winning setlist for your live band to play?
I’ve learned the hard way over the years not to pick songs from the heart. That’s the biggest mistake that most bands make when choosing songs. They will pick songs that they love and assume that if they love the song, everyone else will too. That’s not necessarily the case because I can tell you that a lot of the songs I love and would like to play in a band have never been huge sellers. I like complicated, progressive rock music that most people that aren’t musicians just can’t grasp. Continue reading “How To Choose Songs For Your Live Band To Play”
We’re posting up another great Classic Rock setlist for your live band to learn. The songs in this set list are timeless rock-n-roll that will get any crowd up and having a good time. That’s what it’s all about when you’re playing live music, keeping the crowd engaged. If you learn this setlist you’ll have an entire set of quality classic rock for your audience.
Even if you decide not to learn all of these songs it’s a good idea to have them loaded on your portable music player to play during your band breaks. The songs in this setlist get requested a lot and if you have them on your MP3 player you can at least fulfill some requests during your break.
These songs are available for direct download served by Amazon.com MP3 service. They are encoded at a high quality 256kbps rate and they sound fantastic. All MP3’s from Amazon are DRM free so you can load them on any MP3 player including iPods and iPhones. You don’t need any special software, just download and load them onto your player using any interface you want.
Download this proven set list of dance songs for your live band to learn and play at gigs.
Here’s another excellent Dance set list for your live band to download and use. The songs on this setlist are compiled from the Mobile Beat Top 200 Dance Songs of all time and they are proven to fill the floor with people every time they’re played. You can either use these songs for your band to learn them and play live or you can simply have them on your portable MP3 player to use during band breaks.
My band likes to have a good mix of songs available on the MP3 player for break music because we’re able to fill some song requests while we’re taking a break. The songs on the Live Musician Central set lists are requested regularly and having them available to play during breaks has been a great way to keep the audience happy and dancing all night long.
These songs are available for download from Amazon.com MP3 service. Amazon’s MP3’s are encoded at an excellent 256kbps rate so the sound is very good. They are also DRM free so you can use them on multiple MP3 players. They work with any MP3 player including iPhones and iPods. So get downloading and learn yourself an entire set of excellent dance music!
Included Songs:You Sexy Thing – Hot Chocolate
Footloose – Kenny Loggins
Wild Thing – Tone-Loc
Fight For Your Right (To Party) – Beastie Boys
Sexual Healing – Marvin Gaye
Faithfully – Journey
Tainted Love – Soft Cell
Beat It – Michael Jackson
Get Down On It – Kool & The Gang
Proud Mary – Creedence Clearwater Revival
I Gotta Feeling – Black Eyed Peas
Download these Christmas dance songs for your live band to learn and play at gigs.
Last week I posted up our first Christmas Song set list called Christmas Dance Songs 1 for you to use with your live band. You can either use these set lists as a whole and learn every song on them with your live band or you can pick and choose songs to learn. It’s also a great idea to have all of the songs listed on the set lists loaded on your portable music player so you can have them with you at your gigs. The reason you want to have them with you is so you can fill requests during your band breaks.
It’s not always possible to learn every song on the setlist simply because you band’s lineup may not be able to cover some of the songs on the list. That’s another great reason to have these songs with you at gigs loaded on your portable player. You’ll be able to play some songs during band breaks that your band normally wouldn’t be able to play. That’s a really easy way to keep the audience happy and dancing all night long.
You can download these songs from Amazon.com MP3 download service which gives you several advantages over iTunes. The MP3’s are all encoded at 256kbps which is an excellent quality for MP3’s. You also won’t need any special software to download the songs or load them on your portable music player. All the songs are fully compatible with any MP3 player including iPods and iPhones. So get downloading these Christmas dance songs and start partying!
Included Songs:Christmas Tree – Lady GaGa
Christmas Is The Time To Say I Love You – SR-71
Last Christmas – Wham
Back Door Santa – B.B. King
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – U2
Christmas In Hollis – Run DMC
Blue Christmas – Elvis Presley
Sleigh Ride – TLC
Little Drummer Boy – Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
Everybody Loves Christmas – Eddie Money
Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight) – Ramones
Download these danceable Christmas songs for your live band to learn and play at your Christmas gigs.
It’s Christmas and if you play in a live band then you’ve got to have some Christmas songs learned and ready to play. But what Christmas songs will work in a dance type environment? Lucky for you, we’ve compiles an entire set list of danceable Christmas songs for you to download and learn with your live band!
All of these great Christmas songs have a good solid beat and a driving rhythm’s that make them perfect for dancing. You can listen to the samples and download them from Amazon.com MP3 service. Amazon.com MP3’s are encoded at 256kbps and they sound fantastic. The MP3’s are compatible with all MP3 players including iPhones and iPods. You don’t need any special software to download songs from Amazon.com and all the songs are DRM free!
So download this excellent Christmas dance music set list and learn the songs with your live band or have them on your player to play during your band breaks. Also, make sure you check out our second Christmas song set list, Christmas Dance Songs 2.
Included Songs:Chuck Berry – Run Rudolph Run
Brenda Lee – Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree
Foghat – All I Want For Christmas Is You
George Thorogood – Rock And Roll Christmas
The Kinks – Father Christmas
Elton John – Step Into Christmas
The Waitresses – Christmas Wrapping
Brian Setzer – Jingle Bell Rock
No Doubt – Oi To The World
John Mellencamp – I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
Tom Petty – Christmas All Over Again
Download this custom set list of Dance music for your live band to learn and play.
This is our fifth Dance set list for you to download and use with your live band. These songs on these set lists are proven to fill the floor with dancers every time their played. The set lists are compiled from the list of 300 Top Dance Songs of all time as compiled by Mobile Beat magazine. The songs are time tested and can be used for break music as well as being a source of new material for your live band to learn.
You can listen to samples of the songs by clicking on the player below. The songs can be downloaded from Amazon.com’s MP3 service. The MP3’s are encoded at 256 kbps so they sound excellent. They are also DRM free so you can load them on multiple MP3 players. So check out the songs and download this complete Dance set list!
Included Songs:Usher – Yeah! (Featuring Lil’ Jon & Ludacris)
Will Smith – Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It
Rick James – Super Freak
Sir Mix-A-Lot – Baby Got Back
Madonna – Holiday
Run DMC & Aerosmith – Walk This Way
The Monkees – I’m A Believer
Bachman-Turner Overdrive – Takin’ Care Of Business
Kool & The Gang – Jungle Boogie
KC & The Sunshine Band – (Shake Shake Shake) Shake Your Booty
Download this complete dance music set list for your live band to learn and play.
This is our fourth Dance Set List that you can use as a guide for building your live band sets. No matter what style of music your band plays, some of these songs are going to work for you. If your band plays dance music, then all these songs should work for you and you will have a complete set of dance music to learn. Even if your band doesn’t want to learn all the songs it’s a good idea to have them on your portable music player so you can fulfill requests while your band takes a break.
These songs are compiled from the Mobile Beat Top 200 dance songs of all time. They have been proven time and again to fill the dance floor with people which is exactly what you want to see happen when your band plays a gig.
You can download these songs from Amazon.com MP3 service which requires no special software. All the MP3’s are encoded at 256 Kbps so you will get excellent audio quality. They are also DRM free and will work on any MP3 player including iPods and iPhones.
Included Songs: Grand Funk Railroad – The Loco-Motion
Joan Jett – I Love Rock N’ Roll
Lipps, Inc – Funky Town
Neil Diamond – Sweet Caroline
Big & Rich – Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy)
Black Eyed Peas – Let’s Get It Started
Rednex – Cotton Eye Joe
KC & The Sunshine Band – Get Down Tonight
The Rolling Stones – Start Me Up
Natalie Cole – Pink Cadillac
Journey – Faithfully
Kool & The Gang – Jungle Boogie
Download this set list of Top Songs Of The 90’s for your live band to learn and play at gigs.
Here’s another set list for your live band to learn. I’ve noticed a lot of people in the clubs are really digging hearing the hits from the 90’s now. So today I’ve put together a setlist of top hits from the 90’s. Most of these songs hit #1 on the charts and they all sold millions of copies.
As you know, when a song sells millions that’s a good song for your band to play because there’s an excellent chance that a lot of people will know the song when your band plays it. These songs were compiled by VH1 and were included on the VH1 list called top 100 songs of the 90’s. If your band doesn’t want to learn them it’s still a good idea to keep them on the iPod to play during band breaks.
I’m linking to the songs on Amazon.com MP3 download service because the quality is excellent. They are encoded at 256kbps so they sound excellent. You don’t need any special software to download them and they work on any MP3 player including iPods and iPhones.
Included Songs:
Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit
U2 – One
Madonna – Vogue
Sir Mix-A-Lot – Baby Got Back
Britney Spears – “…Baby One More Time”
TLC – Waterfalls
Metallica – Enter Sandman
Eminem – My Name Is
Radiohead – Creep
Spin Doctors – Two Princes
Collective Soul – Shine
En Vogue – My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)
