The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #153923   Message #3608886
Posted By: GUEST
11-Mar-14 - 06:16 AM
Thread Name: Repeating the first verse at the end
Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
This conversation has gone a bit off-thread, though, Jim - it was about repeating the last verse. In a way you should go a tad further, though, recognising that some songs are dialogues with the audience and go desperately flat if they're the Wigmore Hall kind of audience sitting there purely expecting to be entertained - the kind who expect a live performance to be the ultimate in hi-fidelity recordings and give no feedback whatsoever. Horses for courses, therefore, and dependent also on the audience.
The funniest one I ever discovered was at a dead kitsch tourist performance of Strauss waltzes in Vienna - first piece, dead silence at the end. There's no applause on CDs. Silence. I had the eye of the leader and the conversation went, roughly, "for fuck's sake somebody lead them" "me?" "Yeah, you" "Oh, OK then". Release of the log-jam. Which goes to make the point that if you are going to get the audience involved, seed it with people you know who can come with you and lead them - or risk it going flat.