POLL: Live concerts: Great setlist, or great performance??

What is more important: the setlist or the performance?

Would you rather have a great setlist with a mediocre performance

or

Would you rather have a great performance with a mediocre setlist??

Yes, yes, I know ideally you would like them both - but you've got to choose one scenario!!

 

Great Performance first,then setlist.

 

Sometimes there are songs I somewhat like,but a great performance can really give me a completely new appreciation.I got into some bands by tagging along to a concert and really enjoying the performance even without hearing every hit.

 

Great performance, because it can change mediocore looking setlist sound great. Actually, I hate it when the setlist looks good, but I don't like the performance.

 

Hard to say. Since I liked groups such as the Grateful Dead who were different every night......I enjoyed shows with very unpredictable song selection but might've had some sloppy moments......over well-played shows with auto pilot song selection.

 

I would rather have a great performance with a mediocre setlist.

 

why in the world would anyone ever pick a mediocre performance over a great performance

ridiculous question

 

In favor of an absolutely killer setlist maybe?

Just to be clear: we're not talking about a "bad" or "poor" performance: but mediocre. There's a difference.

 

I'd rather have a great performance with a great setlist, and avoid a mediocre performance with a mediocre setlist. But on the question of which I would prefer--a great music forum with mediocre posts, or a mediocre music forum with great posts--I'm really not sure. Perhaps some wise words from the great (and never mediocre) John Madden will bring clarity to the mediocre/great setlist, mediocre/great performance question. He said:

“Well, when you're playing good football, it's good football and if you don't have good football, then you're not really playing good football.”

-and-

"When you have great players, playing great, well that's great football!"

No, I guess these sage musings don't help us too much here. But hey, football season is right around the corner. I hope the federal judge flips the penalty Goodell put on the great Tom Brady. Any other result will be unjust!

But, as I am putting deep, deep thought into this, I start to think that I would definitely prefer a great performance and a mediocre set list. But, here's the thing--if the performance is great, does this not elevate, necessarily, the quality of the setlist? Can we separate, with any reasonable amount of accuracy, the quality of the song from the quality of the performance? Put another way, if Tom Jones sang the s**t out of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", would not "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" be the finest song ever in those moments? Consider the following:



It just occurs to me that during the last Grateful Dead night at the movies, when they showed an '89 Florida show, the great performance definitely elevated the arguably mediocre parts of the setlist, "Foolish Heart" being a prime example. They played the heck out of some sort of bad songs, transforming them into good songs. So, yeah, I guess I would have to vote for the great performance with the mediocre setlist. But because in my view, the great performance makes the mediocre setlist un-mediocre, I'm not going to vote at all.

 

I didn't vote b/c I always want a great performance. But that doesn't necessarily indicate a bad set list.

 

ALWAYS great performance. TOTALLY ticks me off when the artist "mails it in/goes through the motions".

 

As a longtime Dylan fan this is a very difficult question. On the occasions when he's made Just Like A Woman or Like A Rolling Stone seem special decades after their release one knows they are in the presence of greatness. Then again, hearing an average version of a something from left field is a hell of lot more rewarding than an average warhorse outing. In the end I went with performance, just because...

 

This depends on the artist.
For someone like Springsteen or Pearl Jam even a mediocre performance is better than most live acts. So for them I would much rather have a stellar setlist.
For just about any other artist the performance would be much perfered.

 

When it comes to playing live, I can't imagine anyone wanting to see a mediocre show. Dull + boring = mediocre, in my book.

 

Set list
Surprises
Different arrangements
Rarities

You get these and performance is secondary

 

Set list for me. Performance matters, but the songs have to be a good enough foundation to hang your chops on.

 

The best Grateful Dead litmus test might be 4/8/85 Philadelphia Spectrum. The show is full of rarities.............the 1st set might be one of the most different looking they've ever done.......then the Beatles "Revolution" to open set 2. It also has it's share of sloppy moments and the fast tempo playing the GD were known for in the mid-80s. Reading reviews on archive.org and elsewhere run the gamut from "amazing show with an amazing setlist" to "don't let the setlist fool you, this isn't a good night." As for me, I listen to this show a lot......but I was also there.

I-
Midnight Hour, Walkin' the Dog, Big Boss Man, Me and My Uncle > Cumberland Blues, Down in the Bottom > I Ain't Superstitious, Althea, Tons of Steel, Supplication jam > Might As Well

II-
Revolution, Hell in a Bucket, Touch of Grey, Estimated Prophet > Eyes of the World > Drums/Space > Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad > Stella Blue > Around and Around > Turn on Your Love Light

E-
Brokedown Palace

Yep........I'm a setlist person.

 

Performance. If I go to see an artist it´s because I´m a fan of most of his/her catalogue.

 

That's a weird, kind of overly reductive question. A great performance encompasses both what you perform and how you perform it. Sure you can go out there and ride an old war horse and maybe do something special with it -- one of the greatest performances I've ever seen was the legendary Sergiu Celibidache conducting the Munich Phil in a performance of Pictures at an Exhibition. Or go out there and do a greatest hits set that never surprises yet somehow invest it with so much emotion that it rises above the overly familiar nature of the repertoire. But many times it's great repertoire and surprises involving it that play a role in a great performance.

 

If it isn't a good performance, then automatically the setlist isn't good. If you can't perform, why should I watch?

 

Do you mean the '89 Alpine Valley, Wisconsin show or did I miss out on a Grateful Dead night at the movie?

I am more a performance guy - though I do love a great, varied set-lists with surprises.

 

I agree that this answer is "it depends".

For an act I've seen 30 times, I'll take set list over performance every day of the week.

 

Both kind of shows would be frustrating experiences for me. A great setlist with a mediocre performance would leave me thinking "These songs deserve better performances and some more enthusiasm from the band". But a mediocre setlist would always make me think "I don't want to hear these songs, bring on some old songs/something more original", no matter how well performed a show is. If I'd have to choose I'd go with a great setlist, since that would also make me think "Forget the performances for a while, I'm lucky to be hearing these songs at all".

 

I'll have to look it up, maybe it was Alpine. My memory could be wrong. It was an '89 show shown in movie theaters this year.

Edit: yup, it was Alpine Valley.

 

I don't want to see/hear an artist plod through just a greatest hits set.

jerol