Tips for playing shows (it's a rock band)?

Question

Any tips for a rock band that will be playing shows in the next month or so? Set-up, breakdown of equipment, working the crowd, preperation, etc?

Answer 1

Learn to put up and break down your equipment quickly. I've seen a drummer take 30 minutes to set up the most basic of drum sets when the set was brought in. Have backups for your guitars and electrical equipment. A broken string on a guitar is a 15 minute pause on your set (experienced that from the same band that took that long on the drum set) to fix it.

Ignore the crowd if you think they are bored (in music videos those "crowds" are paid to be all festive, but they are no where near that in real life). If they aren't paying attention to you, you can forget the onstage talk and sing alongs. Ignore the drunks (talk with the manager before hand on having the manager remove the noisy drunks). Have your merchandise (same band above forgot their stuff and I wanted a CD)!