My first thought is that you need the introduction to be an interesting and/or amusing part of the stage patter, which means preparing one if you need it: "This isn't a song about Alice."
yes, exactly. i do introduce a couple of my songs with stories about why or how i wrote them, but always with an eye to entertaining the listener. and unless you're as fascinating a raconteur as John Prine, such an introduction should never take longer than, say, a minute to deliver. and even that's pushing it.
if it can't be done in a minute or less and be entertaining in the bargain, the correct approach is to ask the audience "how many of you are familiar with the books of so-and-so?" and if most of them aren't, don't play that song. if most of them are, say "well, at least some of you will get it, then," and move on.
okay, i'm just holding forth like a big windbag now, but i have a bug up my butt about people with poor performance skills. i recently saw a highly respected local musician open a benefit concert, and it was absolutely the worst opening set i'd ever seen. now, this guy is gray-haired and has been a fixture of the Austin music scene for something like 25 years, but somehow in all that time he's never learned a number of things i figured out years ago:
the first song should *always* have energy and forward momentum, to catch the audience's attention.
no long and/or slow songs in the first three, period, and never end a first or opening set with a slow song. it's hard to carry off slower songs live unless you own the audience anyway, and even then you risk losing people between sets if you don't leave them with some momentum going into the break.
when you're the opener, that audience *is not yours*, and you need to calculate your set to grab maximum attention quickly and lead smoothly into the next group. this goes double if it's a benefit concert, where you specifically want to keep the audience amped up and enthusiastic. this also means no long, rambling intros -- save that stuff for your own audiences, who'll appreciate it more than a bunch of strangers who are probably there to see the headliners.
i have an enormously talented friend who used to always lose his audience after the second set. he does two kinds of songs, in the main: clever parody stuff, and tearjerker honky-tonk. he'd pack the first set with funny stuff and do all downbeat songs in the second set, and most of the audience would get bored and leave.
anyway. yeah, still lecturing. time to shut up now. sorry, i'm always stumbling over soapboxes like this.
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if it can't be done in a minute or less and be entertaining in the bargain, the correct approach is to ask the audience "how many of you are familiar with the books of so-and-so?" and if most of them aren't, don't play that song. if most of them are, say "well, at least some of you will get it, then," and move on.
okay, i'm just holding forth like a big windbag now, but i have a bug up my butt about people with poor performance skills. i recently saw a highly respected local musician open a benefit concert, and it was absolutely the worst opening set i'd ever seen. now, this guy is gray-haired and has been a fixture of the Austin music scene for something like 25 years, but somehow in all that time he's never learned a number of things i figured out years ago:
i have an enormously talented friend who used to always lose his audience after the second set. he does two kinds of songs, in the main: clever parody stuff, and tearjerker honky-tonk. he'd pack the first set with funny stuff and do all downbeat songs in the second set, and most of the audience would get bored and leave.
anyway. yeah, still lecturing. time to shut up now. sorry, i'm always stumbling over soapboxes like this.