Here’s an oldie but goodie that first ran a little more than 4 years ago. A few longtime Townspeople struck up a nice dialog, trading personal stories. I suspect so many more personal stories are out there, waiting to be shared by folks who weren’t pacing the Halls of Rock in our nascent days as a blog. Here’s your chance to dazzle!

This post initially appeared 8/7/07.

A friend of mine is a die-hard Police fan, and he’s been to three of the shows on the reunion tour currently ongoing. He’s enjoyed the shows but told me that they’ve been playing exactly the same set and telling exactly the same jokes/stage patter each time. Sting even takes a little walk away from the mic at exactly the same time in exactly the same song.

Back in my touring days, the Dead Milkmen made it a practice to pass the setlist duties around in rotation. The set was always different every night. This made the shows a little more interesting for all of us and hopefully for the folks who saw us multiple nights (we even played different sets for the two reunion shows we did in 2004). Sure we played some key songs every night but chances are you were going to hear a couple different tunes and different stories/stage patter based on who made the setlist that night.

Maybe the Police like other “bigger” bands have lightshows and camera angles for the big screen TV’s to worry about but c’mon! Mix it up a little and take a few risks!

So my questions to the Townspeople are as follows:

• Have you been to see bands multiple nights on a tour and have they always played the same set and told the same jokes each night?
• If you’re a musician, How do you approach the setlist? Do you try to get into the comfort zone and play the same set each night?
• For all of you, How do you feel about bands playing unreleased material and new songs? Or maybe you just want to hear the hits.