Big vs small gigs...

John_P

Just got home from tonights gig and comparing it to the night before...   Same band (very daft 80's rock covers - lots of outfits and big guitars)
Friday was in a pub with between 50 and 100 people watching at various times in the night and no stage, Sat was a big club between 300 and 400 people in, big stage and sound and lighting crew.
We got a good reponse both nights with everyone dancing and singing along - not too hard when you're doing a ton of Bon Jovi etc but I enjoyed Friday a lot more.  We put a lot into a gig and it just feels easier to get into the gig when the audience are (almost literally) on top of you and interacting with the band is so much easier when you're crammed in close...

Anyone else feel the same way and prefer the smaller gigs?

Roland

Yes, I much prefer to play the smaller gigs. It's partly about being closer to the rest of the band, partly being closer to the audience. As an audience member I also prefer the smaller venues for the same reasons.

DulcetJones

Roland said:

Yes, I much prefer to play the smaller gigs. It's partly about being closer to the rest of the band, partly being closer to the audience. As an audience member I also prefer the smaller venues for the same reasons.

Exactly.  I've been there in both cases too.  The first time I saw Los Lobos it was a small venue and they were on the floor with us, it was absolutely one of the best gigs I've been to.  I saw them again about a year later in an arena and it was just not the same, both the band and the crowd.

digitalscream

I actually prefer a decent stage with a couple of hundred people - so probably somewhere in the middle. My new band played our first gig on Friday to about 150, and the old familiar rush came back...I doubt it would've felt as good had we played in a 50-100 capacity pub.

Then again, we play all (well, mostly) originals, so the odds of us playing a pub are pretty remote

Jalapeno

I'd prefer ANY at the moment (prolonged dry spell due to nobody getting of their arse)

Danny1969

I like a bit of room onstage if possible. Oh and an actual stage rather than having to set up under a dartboard or in front of the toilets etc 

Audience wise some of the bigger club gigs with 200 to 400 people can be a great atmosphere but I'm happy in little pubs as well. 

I was once lucky enough to play to 100,000 people in 2008, through a huge array and the feeling you get is immense, like a huge rush of adrenaline and times seems to go twice as fast.  

ICBM

I prefer the big ones - I've only played a very few, all festivals (and very low down on the bill at that), but the rush you get when there are thousands of people jumping up and down to what you're doing beats anything I've felt in a small gig. It's especially impressive when the crowd is so big you can actually see the 'wave' moving away from the stage.

I love the sound you get on a big stage when you can turn up your amp and not have to bother about having the soundman complain you're louder than his PA too - and being further from the amp makes it much less hard on your ears when you do. I wear earplugs for loud gigs in small spaces, but never needed to for big ones despite being louder.

koneguitarist

I prefer small gigs where you are literally face to face with audience, but it depends on the type of music. Blues and rock definitely , but when I was doing the rounds as a country band I liked the big stages and big dance floors. Horses for courses. Talking to a mate a while back, he was in a band that supported U2 at wembley, and he said that was a serious blast, a lifetime experience apparently, one that I am not likely to see !

guitarfishbay

Best gig I've done so far was at a packed out HMV Ritz in Manchester.

Playing drums in a samba band at a student night -

We were announced on stage but didn't enter on stage, we entered from the main doors at the back with bouncers as entourage.

The plan was to form a circle in the middle of the crowd with the drummers playing an intro, then our dancers would arrive and dance in the centre and the crowd would dance around us.  Then we'd eventually parade up on to the stage to complete the set.

What actually happened was the crowd got straight past the drummers and the bouncers and it was mayhem, basically the entire set was played with us in the middle of hundreds of people dancing around having a good time.  Was very hard to keep line of sight with the drum leader for rhythm changes, but honestly the vibe was incredible so i don't think anyone cared about a bit of sloppiness.

Nuts.

spacecadet

I love both. I play mostly smaller gigs now (200-400 people) which is pretty cool. You can really feed off them and interact better. I spent a lot of years touring and playing big to huge crowds. Best one I ever did was south of France to 50,000. There really isn't any feeling like it. To have that many people jumping along with you is something else.