Rousing the Crowd in the unlikeliest places

Two examples over the last couple of days of the difference crowd interaction can make to any gig.

Firstly, I stumbled (almost literally), into a cheesey bar where a solo artist was crooning along to some backing tracks in front of a largely disinterested audience.

Cue the appearance at the side of the stage of someone´s daughter - a cute little toddler. She started swaying and gyrating a little to the noise the singer was making. He made a couple of comments about his "new fan".

Suddenly the room was paying attention to what was happening on and around the stage.

When the number finished he got the biggest round of applause he`d had. The only applause he´d had up to that stage actually I think.

His "fan" wandered away but did return a couple more times to dance along. The mood had turned with that one incident though. In ackowledging the little girl he´d shown he was human, his crowd had warmed to him and were on his side -paying attention.

I´ve always been enthusiastic in recommending audience participation and here was a perfect example from the most unlikely direction


The second example comes from a visit to another bar where this time a Karaoke provided the "entertainment".

We watched a string of the good, very good and shockingly bad get up and sing or shout their way through various numbers. Mostly, they stood with their backs to the audience reading the words.

If they were obviously good singers they would get enthusiastic applause at the end of their performance. One guy was given a big build up as someone who´d sung there before on a number of occasions and had a "sensatiobnal" voice. He got up to loud applause and his crystal clear, very pure voice was momentarily met by almost stunned silince as he started a ballad the name of which I´ve forgotten.

Within 60 seconds though, peoople had turned away from the back of his head and were chatting as before.

Contrast this with the last performer we watched there.

He sang "Need u tonight" and in between sentences would turn round to beam a smile at someone at the back of the room. Soon people were turning to see who he was smiling at and then singing and clapping along.

He made a mistake with some of the words and turned to the crowsd grimmacing and got a big laugh.

Then, at the end, he held onto the mic, faced the crowd and announced the song was for his wife as they had now been married for 10 years. It brought the house down.

No rocket science, just showing he was human and breaking down barriers between the crowd and himself.

A lesson or two there for all of us who are playing gigs methinks....