I don't do a lot of bars and restaurants per se anymore... The following (sent to me by a fellow player) sums up a lot of other venues I play.

10 Musical Facts for Playing in a Bar or Restaurant..

1) Unless you are in a concert situation, most of the people are not there to hear you. Your music is incidental. People go to restaurants and bars to eat, to drink, to socialize, do business, or maybe to be alone in a crowd. So if you reach some of them and entertain them, you've done a hell of a job.

2) In most restaurants, your main objective is to try to entertain without bothering anybody.

3) Any volume is too loud for someone.

4) The talent of anyone who wants to sit in is inversely proportional to how insistent he or his friends are about his sitting in. The most talented musician that you would really like to play with will be sitting there quietly and will have left his axe in the car.

5) The crowd would rather hear a terrible rendition of 'Sweet Caroline'; than the tastiest arrangement of one of your originals that they've never heard before.

6) The customer who asked for 'Sweet Caroline', his favorite song, won't realize you're playing it until you actually reach the word 'Sweet'.

7) Someone in the crowd will have halfway heard you play 'Sweet Caroline' and it will remind him of the song so he'll request it right after you've just played it.

8) Unless you want to marry her and be the one who takes her home every night, don't hitch your star to a girl singer.

9) Every black horn player who wants to sit in; used to play with James Brown or "Brother" Ray.

.....And the number one fact of life in playing in clubs and restaurants.......
Your slowest night, with the most obnoxious crowd and the worst response, is immeasurably better than the best day you ever had at a day job!!!

Eddie

Amen, Eddie!

And . . . I might add:

It's guaranteed you won't have a clean power line, so the air conditioning/refrigerator/neon sign/jukebox/gift machine, etc. will be sending assorted whumps, crackles and farts through your sound system.

Oh well, rock on anyway!

I emailed this to one of my employers. He keeps a bulletin board of interesting things in the club and chances are good he'll post this for public benefit. That's one small step for a band but one giant leap for bandkind.

Got this one from DNJ a couple days ago, printed a large copy, framed it and it's on the office wall.

Cheers,

Gary

#8 is my ONLY rule that I have adhered to throughout my entire career. Don't do it guys ! Pay 'em and send 'em home. I would never want to sing a love song duet with the same person that I argued with about the lawn earlier that day. makes me shiver just to think of it. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Spot On, except personally I enjoy my day job as well!