Blog Gigs Facts Music Shop Links
home >  blog :  current /  archive /  RSS Feed

Blog: What Kind Of KRAZY ROCK SHOWS Are We Talking About Here?

< previous next >
Yesterday we looked at the songs played overall, so today we're going to look at how that varied in different TYPES of gigs. By TYPES I mean what configuration I was playing in e.g. solo, with Steve etc etc. Here's a TABLE to show the varieties available:

Types Of Gigs By Number Gigs Played
Type Of GigNumber Of Gigs
Solo562
Hibbett & Hewitt163
The Validators132
Voon60
The Council19
Mark & Simon14
The Masters Of Nothing5
Other45

The category "Other" here refers to various odds and sods including several of the various other bands I've played in over the years. "Mark & Simon" was the (VERY IMAGINATIVE) name of the double act I did with my friend Mr S Wilkinson in the early 1990s - we hosted a student comedy club called "The Casbah" (GRATE name!) and went on to do a couple of other gigs which were, not to put too fine a point on it, very clear signs that we should perhaps keep our activities to our own club!

Other than that we can see that the majority of ALL my gigs have been solo ones, followed by the Steve shows and The Validators, and then the historical BANDS that have been discussed before. This, however, is an ALL-TIME list of gigs, but if we want to delve into the songs PLAYED at those gigs we need to only look at shows from 2005 onwards, as that's when we've got the setlists.

Types Of Gigs By Gigs Played From 2005 Onwards
Type Of GigNumber Of Gigs
Solo461
Hibbett & Hewitt163
Validators101
Other14

COR, that's a rather dramatic SHIFT in type isn't it? Interestingly (NB I keep saying "interestingly" - to avoid confusion what I mean here of course is "interestingly for people who like FASCINATING THINGS") the vast majority of my solo gigs occur during this period - 82% of them, in fact - indicating that my early days in ROCK pre-2005 were very much more likely to be cocooned within the comforting warmth of BANDS. In the past couple of decades, however, I have STRUCK OUT solo much more often, and have also PARED DOWN the type of act I am liable to cavort with. But what was I PLAYING in these solo gigs? Here's the FACTS!

Songs Played At Solo Gigs, By Number Of Gigs
RankSongGigs
1The Lesson Of The Smiths267
2The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group ...242
3It Only Works Because You're here197
4Boom Shake The Room174
5Easily Impressed154
6Hey Hey 16K116
7My Boss Was In An Indie Band Once111
8The Gay Train99
9Do The Indie Kid97
10I Did A Gig In New York81
11Billy Jones Is Dead78
12Theme From Dinosaur Planet70
13Clubbing In The Week66
14Being Happy Doesn't Make You Stupid61
1520 Things To Do Before You're 3061
16Totally Acoustic49
17(You Make Me Feel) Soft Rock45
18Fucking Hippy40
19Red and White Sockets40
20A Little Bit40
21The Perfect Love Song34
22That Guy34
23The Fight For History33
24We Did It Anyway32
25Sod It, Let's Get Pissed31
26I Come From The Fens30
27Never Going Back To Aldi's30
28Don't, Darren, Don't29
29The Theory Of A Dinosaur Planet24
30In The North Stand24


I've done the top THIRTY here because, to be honest, the top TEN isn't particularly interesting, as it's pretty much the same as in the OVERALL list we looked at yesterday. However, once we get past them things get VERY interesting with a whole bunch of songs from different periods of my ROCK life. For instance, Fucking Hippy and Red and White Sockets are songs I used to play ALL the time, but haven't done live since 2011 and 2017 respectively. That Guy and The Fight For History are similar former BANKERS that don't get out much anymore, and I was AMAZED to see Sod It, Let's Get Pissed got played 31 times. This seemed unbelievable, until I remembered that it was part of My Exciting Life In ROCK, so got done a LOT when that show was on the go. Similarly, just below the top 30, all the songs from the solo version of Dinosaur Planet start to pop up.

Talking of shows, I was going to do a similar list for songs done with Steve... but that just brought up a huge pile of songs played around 40 times, as the setlist for each show was pretty much the same every time! The only big difference was that We Did It Anyway got played twice as often as everything else because it was in two different shows. We liked it!

So instead, for today's final table, let's see what I was playing with The Validators, with a more traditional TOP TWENTY.

Songs Played With The Validators, By Number Of Gigs
RankSongGigs
1=Easily Impressed88
1=The Lesson Of The Smiths88
3Billy Jones Is Dead58
4Hey Hey 16K55
5=Do The Indie Kid53
5=Being Happy Doesn't Make You Stupid53
7The Gay Train47
7=My Boss Was In An Indie Band Once47
9Better Things To Do26
10=Leave My Brother Alone25
10=Quality Of Life Enhancement Device25
12It Only Works Because You're here22
1320 Things To Do Before You're 3021
14=We Did It Anyway20
14=(You Make Me Feel) Soft Rock20
16The Fight For History19
17Things'll Be Different When I'm In Charge16
18=Theme From Dinosaur Planet15
18=Can We Be Friends?15
20=Never Going Back To Aldi's11
20=Tell Me Something You Do Like11
20=Please Don't Eat Us11


This one takes a little while to get FUNKY too, with the only real surprise for me being the appearance of Quality Of Life Enhancement Device at number 10. Did we really play it that often? I guess so - STATS don't lie! Shortly after that it's very pleasing to see It Only Works Because You're here creeping up the Validator charts as it took me AGES to persuade them to do it!

Right at the bottom there's Please Don't Eat Us, which I seem to recall we did quite a lot because Tim liked it. Never underestimate The Power Of TIM in Validators setlist-making, for he is usually WIELDER OF THE PEN and also EXPERT at Looking Sad if we don't at least have a couple of goes at new songs. This is partly why we have done SO MANY different songs - 104 altogether over this timeframe, but with only 35 of them being played more than five times and, amazingly, exactly half of ALL songs we've ever played (62) only being played once. I must make a mental note of this STAT to quote back to him next time we have a setlist meeting - if it was up to me we would probably have been playing EXACTLY the same Validators set for the past five years!

There's be more of this sort of thing next week, with some RANKING comparisons, a look at how MANY songs get played in various line-ups, and if time allows maybe even some SALES figures. Before that, however, I'll have a whole new VIDEO to show you - see you for that on Monday!

posted 10/2/2023 by MJ Hibbett

< previous next >


Comments:

I thought Hibbett's Golden Rules of Beer would make it into the top 30?
posted 10/2/2023 by

If I had an MJ Hibbett tribute band, I'd be certain to include "Other Band's Setlists".
posted 12/2/2023 by Dan

Your Comment:
Your Name:
SPAMBOT FILTER: an animal that says 'moo' (3)

(e.g. for an animal that says 'cluck' type 'hen')

Bluesky /  Twitter /  Bandcamp /  Facebook /  YouTube
Click here to visit the Artists Against Success website An Artists Against Success Presentation