Creating The Ultimate Set List

Its All About The Show

One of the most overlooked aspects of being in a band is the choosing of the setlist, the songs that make up a gig. Over the years I've seen countless bands play live, and many times I have walked away thinking, "why did they open with this song?", "why did they finish with that song?".

In Pretty Vegas, every gig we do is tailor made for your event!

Its In Our Blood

I ( or should i say we) grew up on the traditions of the larger then life rock bands, that being your Guns n Roses, Metallica, Bon Jovi etc... who when playing didn't just play a gig, they played a SHOW! It was an experience that they created, with lighting, smoke, video's and fireworks. You came away feeling that you had been part of something very special.

As Pretty Vegas we try to think big and want to make your pub, birthday, wedding day to feel like its happening in Wembley Stadium! There is a limit on the amount of fireworks we can use indoors (joke!!!), but the show primarily comes down to the power of the setlist, the choosing of the songs ,the order of which we play them....no matter what way you put it,it only comes under one title....THE SETLIST!!!

In Pretty Vegas, one of my jobs is creating the setlist for the show. I like to start with the obvious, The Beginning. It's the start of a gig really sets the tempo for the rest of the night, so the choice has to be made depending on the event, but normally, we start with a bang, a statement of intent about what is to come.

Intro's Please

Think back to any of the great gigs you have been to and I bet you can remember which song kicked it all off first! The first song should be the one that gets the adreneline pumping and should pretty much set the stall for the rest of the night, which is why we like to kick off with a big OTT rock anthem, accompanied with our very own "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" intro music (Ecstasy of Gold, stolen from Metallica)! Many bands just start, we like to make an entrance.

After we have grabbed your attention its time to slow things down a little with some of our acoustic based numbers as this allows the audience to catch a breath an renew their energy ready for the finale of the set. You can expect the likes of Crowded House, Snow Patrol and Paul Weller in this section.

This is also where we would place any requests from the crowd making, it the most personal and intimate part of the show. I like to think of it as the MTV Unplugged or VH1 Storytellers section.

The Memory Remains

Like any great story, there needs to be a great ending, something that leaves a lasting imprint on the audiences memory ,something that they will tell there friends about in work on Monday!

The FINALE is something that every band is aware of, but dont always embrace it We as Pretty Vegas treat every gigs end like we are playing to 90000 people. This is Pretty Vegas going at full pelt and really giving it some!!! Guaranteed floor fillers are all you will find in this section, along with the beads of sweat that have also joined the audience on the dancefloor!

In short, like any good book, you need to have a great start, an interesting middle section, and a grand finale. 

If you are looking for a rocking wedding band, a soulful function band or an acoustic pub gig, you can be sure you are getting something unique, exciting and memorable.

Pretty Vegas tick all those box's because we care about our audience, without them we wouldn't exist!!!



Leighton Hume
Pretty Vegas Wedding Band - Guitar And Vocals

This Is What I Like To Call "Quiet Time"

For those that didn't know, that was a quote from the film "Cruel Intentions", and the reason to mention it was that it's been a while since the last blog post, mainly due to Christmas, and also because for most wedding bands, or any type or cover band, January is generally very slooooooow!

Ever since we have been in a band together (about 18 years in various forms! God, I feel old!), on the run up to Christmas, we have always said that this year, that's it, we are going to work like hell in January to do the things we normally struggle to find the time to do.

Every year, the first 2 weeks are always "instead of practice, fancy a pint and a chat instead".

We need to start sticking to New Years Resolutions!

First Christmas For The Future Band Member

One of the reasons for the break was also that it way my son, Vegas', first Christmas, so whilst we booked up gigs up to the 22nd, we all had the Christmas period off.

 

That was actually a joke, his name isn't Vegas! He is actually named after my favourite F1 driver and acoustic guitars. Little Kamui Breedlove loved his first Christmas.

Hahaha, God I am on fire!

Anyway, the time away gave us the usual breather that we do actually need to keep ourselves sane for the rest of the year, what with us all being married with jobs, family, mortgages (rock n' roll!!), and coming back we have the renewed vigour to start gigging again, with this being the 3rd year in a row of us being fully booked in February. 

The last few practices in January, as per usual, have been us getting back into the habit of playing, and getting together the songs that we have been texting each other about over the break!

New Tunes

With some of the bookings we have so far for the coming 12 months, a few have been getting creative in their requests for songs that aren't currently on our set list, and whilst we keep trying out new stuff, there is nothing quite like a new client making some suggestions to add a few divergent styles to our repertoire. Even though we get booked by the set we currently have, people often use a mix of their own faves, or the songs we have a starting point and think, "hell, you do ..., what about ...?" and that is great for us. Some plainly don't work, but some definitely provide us with avenues to explore.

So this means that for the band, the next few months are going to involve more rehearsal time on, and me in the studio on backings, getting things up to speed. That means staying away from dirty nappies, mashed food being thrown and having my arm thrown up on. And that's just my wife!

Can I get a high five?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Time to give up the comedy and get back to the studio!

Prior To Christmas Dinner Growth!!! Gym Time!

Ritchie 

Pretty Vegas - Wedding Band Covering Manchester, Liverpool, Cheshire and Lancashire

Creating The Backings Pt1

"Well, You Only Need To Punch The Information in Once!"

Yes, we are a Wedding Band now, but this has not always been the case, and before we started Pretty Vegas, we were all in a band called The Small Party; we gigged, we recorded an album, and came second in a nationwide Battle of the Bands, playing at Manchester Academy. We are real musicians!

The reason we came to using backing tracks is simply down to logistics. Its easier to fit 3 guys, guitars and PA in 2 cars than it is trying to fit 4 guys, bass amp, drum kit and PA in 2 or more cars!

When we started doing the whole Pretty Vegas thing, we were torn for a LONG time about actually using backings instead of a full live band, as we simply weren't sure of how well the whole thing would come across. Would we feel like frauds using backings? How good would they sound? Would a lack of freedom inhibit us (or could we play well to a click?!?!)?

As usual, I wanted to prove the concept, and the lure of not having to tell the drummer what to play EVERY SINGLE TIME was very appealing to me. As the old joke goes;

" Whats the difference between a drummer and a drum machine?

With a drum machine, you only have to punch the information in once"

Cubase, MIDI and A Big Hole In My Pocket

When I first started playing, I bought a Fostex 4-Track and played around a little on it, but never really took the recording side of things seriously. I had a BIT of knowledge, but in truth, it was (and still is in some respects) me fumbling my way around to try and make something work. I think it is still in my loft!

When The Small Party started, it came about from doing acoustic pub gigs (no bass, no drums), but over time, more and more originals came into the set, and after a while we had about 10 songs that we regularly played, so the idea was, lets record them and see what happens. I got an old copy of Cubase (I knew someone that used it, so could always ask for help!), some books, a pair of monitors and a recording interface and went to town. Not all results were successful, but on the whole, we were happy, and decided that we should save up gig money and go into a "proper" studio (own by the Someone). When doing the demo's, I played bass and programmed the drums using Groove Agent, and the results were good, not GREAT, but certainly were good enough to get the message across when coupled with layers of guitars and vocals.

After the heartbreak and desperation that comes from being in an original band, we had time apart, and even though we still saw each other regularly, we didn't play music, as the mindset with us was that it was "too soon". Then I got a text from Leighton asking if I could do good sounding backings using Cubase for us to try?

"Hmmm" thought Ritchie!

 

A quick scout around T'internet and I found LOTS of MIDI files that I could load into Cubase, then use Groove Agent to play the drums. I could always play the bass, or I could use another bass virtual instrument. I could spend a weekend and do a load of tracks and all done!

Please note the use of the word "could"!

Even with the rosiest-tinted glasses, our first foray into the world of using backings was an unmitigated disaster! The mix was awful, the tracks sounded rigid and we kept wandering out of time to the point that after 60 seconds it was time to stop the track. The good thing was, we could work on the timings. And we did.

After a few hours, we were getting the hang of it, and we knew we could do it, but we needed to improve the sound and get the tracks to have a bit more bounce about them, and as the newly appointed "Head of Recording and Engineering" for our as-yet unnamed project, I had the task of getting them right. Problem was, I didn't know how!

Hello Mr Credit Card

 

I am not sure if you have ever tried to use a laptop for mixing and recording, but when I first started this, my "rig" was a single core Sony Vaio lappy (not a particularly good one!), a basic M-Audio Fast Track interface and some Edirol Micro Monitors. I heard on the rumour mill that Abbey Road was petrified.

 I decided at that point that I needed a new Digital Audio Workstation (DAW, recording software), and some better virtual instruments, so, Mr Credit Card, meet Mr Cubase, Mr BFD2, Mr Trillian and Mr Kontakt!

Once I got the new software, I found myself in the position of my poor old Sony laptop struggling to deal with what I was throwing at it; big sample libraries, small CPU power. My new HP work laptop had also been called into battle, it having 4gb of RAM and a Dual Core processor, but even that was struggling under the weight of what I was asking it to do. However, I also realised that mixing on a mouse was NOT conducive to an efficient workflow, and as a result of this I had to choose, new interface / controller or new computer??? At this point, websites and Wedding Band Blogs hadn't even been considered!



The decision, however, was NOT that simple, as I looked at the options, an a new breed of processors were around the corner, and a new garage was also being discussed between myself and the good lady wife. At the time, my "studio" was the larger of the spare bedrooms, which also was a study / dumping ground for all my wife's teaching materials, and had already been earmarked as being the bedroom of our yet-to-be-conceived firstborn. "Hmmm", thought Ritchie, yet again!

And so, with Mr Mastercard only just having recovered from his first pummeling, I bought the cheaper of the two potential purchases, my ProjectMix controller, with a firm eye now being kept on CPU's and their progression. How long would it be before my "Flexible Friend" would receive another onslaught?

Not long at all!

My New Room

 

Whilst working on tracks and getting up to speed with basic backings, I had my garage built, resplendent with a room at the back that would be my new studio. The problem was, that whilst I had identified the new for a new computer, I also knew that my monitoring simply wasn't up to scratch, as mixes I had done weren't translating well when brought into rehearsals. Much time had since been spent on the forums over at Sound on Sound and I knew that despite having good headphones, I needed to improve my acoustics in the room and the monitors playing back the mixes, so prior to completion, I bought some Auralex panels, and constructed a whole host of broadband diffusers, ready to be mounted. This was the cheapest part!

After MUCH research and on completion of my room, I placed all my acoustic panels and diffusers in the room in the correct location, and again, it was time to "splash the cash", this time in the form of a pair of Adam A7X monitors to replace the, quite frankly, shocking Edirol offerings.

With the room now containing many a nice toy (including mic's and vocal screens, all purchased on the QT!!!), I knew it was time to get the powerhouse computer and really get this show on the road!

As usual with me, once my mind was made up, that was it, I HAVE TO HAVE IT! So a quick trip to Bolton to SCAN to "just have a look" meant that by 6pm that day, I was home, with a new i7 based PowerDAW, loaded with 16GB of RAM, 3TB of storage and a shiny new 27" monitor. £1500 did NOT return home with me that day! That then meant that after a few days of loading virtual instruments onto my new pride and joy, I would actually be able to start getting the tracks ready, using full quality samples, and not having to freeze everything, then un-freeze, just to make a few changes. After 12 months of rehearsals and a slow and steady increase in my knowledge of what I was doing (well, sort of anyway!), things were about to go crazy as I could finally unleash the type of sound I had in my had for Pretty Vegas.

Ritchie
Pretty Vegas North West Wedding Band

 

Choosing Songs For The Band

So Many Songs, So Little Time

For a Wedding Band that plays a variety of styles, it can actually be VERY difficult to choose what songs to learn that will be a success within a set. Having too much of one thing may alienate a section of the audience, whilst having too many disparate styles may fails to connect you to your crowd, and as humans, there are only a finite number of songs that you can learn and remember. Well, that's the case for us anyway! We do have a lot of songs in the set list that get played on a regular basis, but there are some that are definitely "pub" tunes, "function" tunes and "wedding" tunes, so when we have a gig coming up and are working on the set list for that show, we choose what we think will have the most impact and enjoyment for the crowd. This can either be a rough guess based on previous performances there, or from a wild stab in the dark after speaking to the event organiser.

Some Songs Just Work

When we started playing years ago, we realised that some songs in our set suited our style better than others, be it the arrangement, tempo or harmonies we used. These tunes just have a certain something about them and always go down an absolute storm, be it a function in Manchester or a wedding gig in Liverpool. 

This video of us doing "Take Me To The River / Please Please Me" is an example of what we do that ALWAYS blows the roof off!

It's probably because we have learned so many songs over the years, many which are no longer part of the set, that when we look at new songs, we know if it is of a similar style to what we do then we can generally make it work quite easily. The obvious problem with this is that it can quickly make the set sound too similar and lacking in diversity. This is not a problem for bands who stick to a particular genre, but that is NOT what Pretty Vegas are about. 

Medleys - A Pretty Vegas Speciality!

Please, watch this video.

As music lovers, there are sooooo many songs that we would love to play, but due to time constraints, original song length or its structure, we can't realistically play the full tune.

This is where our trademark medleys come into play, mainly in thanks to years if watching Live Metallica shows!

In some cases, we will actually "segue" songs, like we do with "Take Me Please Me", which are full songs that just happen to run nicely into each other and keep the audiences attention / dancing shoes moving. We also do Prince's "Kiss" straight into "Perfect 10", which is great because our lead singer Mark Keown is built like a brick s**thouse, is about 6'4" and does all the female and falsetto parts!

Mark Keown - Big and Scary but Sings Prince For Fun

For other songs that people know and love, we generally look at what are the main elements of a song, what are the fundamentals that make it what it is, the hook, the solo, the breakdown, then try to incorporate that into a medley. That way, people get the song, but the attention of everyone in the room is maintained as the medleys we write are usually done to get a wide variety in that will keep everyone bouncing, even if they don't like THAT particular song.

In an earlier post about why it is Why Its Harder To Get Gigs in 2012 I mention about the decline that has occurred in pubs playing live music, and the one thing that has always been said when we play at a venue for the first time is about our diversity when selecting music, and the medleys we play. The general consensus is that we provide something for everyone.

Getting Picked For The First Team

As a band we are always looking at the songs we play, and seeing how we can strengthen our set, and in many cases, when chatting we use a football analogy.

"Yeah, but is that song strong enough to be picked for the first team or will it be left on the bench. Its good, but its no... (insert current set song here!)"

What still surprises us is that when we are looking at new songs to add to our repertoire, they aren't always songs that have only just been released. You would be surprised how many songs we have actually "forgotten about", classics that for one reason or another have been overlooked.

Take "Rolling in The Deep" by Adele, that was an instant favourite, but we discounted it until the other two boys were at Download and saw a metal band do a version, and by doing a mix of the cover and the Adele original, it is now permanently in the first team. That song had been out about 6 or 7 months when we added it to the set and at the moment it shows no signs of going anywhere, in part due to the continued success of Adele in the UK and US, and in part because its a great song that we do well. Then there are songs that you hear on the radio and think "God, how did I forget THAT!"

Recently, we finished getting "Brown Sugar", "I Feel Good", "Jailhouse Rock" and "Dakota's on Fire (Dakota and Sex on Fire segued) up to standard, and these are songs that many bands would consider to be essential for their set, but for us, we either forgot or didn't think that at the time we first tried them that we could do them justice. Ultimately, its easy to say "no, not good enough" and leave a song alone, but as we grow as musicians, we do re-visit songs too and find that from a different perspective they can be part of the set.

Or at least on the "Subs Bench"!

Our Indulgences!

These are songs that we know aren't THAT well known, and are generally saved for pub gigs due to being a BIT more obscure or not an acts Top 10 hit, but as Pretty Vegas, we feel we do a stunning version of. We also include them in the Set List on the website as potential Clients can also see our diversity, and it may be one of their favourite tunes than nobody else does!

Some examples of these for Pretty Vegas are:-

• Bad Things - Jace Everett (Theme From True Blood)

• Call Me Number 5 - Paul Weller and Kelly Jones

• Its Only Natural - Crowded House (They did other songs, not just Weather With You!!)
• The Captain - Biffy Clyro ('Mon The Biffy!)

The funny thing with these songs, AND the "Enter Sandman" solo in the middle of the Shakin' Medley, is either when we are playing, or after we have finished, we nearly always have a few members of the audience go wild about them, almost like its an "in-joke" because they are not the most well known of songs. We think of them as songs for music lovers played by music lovers.

Client Suggestions

At some point during a gig, or when we are taking wedding bookings, someone will suggest a song that we don't play, or an artist we don't cover, and whilst we will take specific requests from clients for functions of weddings, if we are playing a pub gig and the same song gets requested in different locations, that certainly pricks our ears up, and as part of moving forward, we need to ensure what we provide meets peoples expectations. That doesn't mean that if enough people say it we will play a Steps song, but more a case of keeping our minds open to different avenues for this thing we do, and ensuring that everyone at a Pretty Vegas show, the band included, come away happy.

Thanks for reading

Ritchie

Pretty Vegas North West Wedding Band