I recently went to a Red Jumpsuit Apparatus show, and while it was awesome, something really stood out to me during the opening acts; some bands have really poor presence on stage.
Now, I don't mean to sound condescending in any way, this is just my honest opinion, but, a couple of the opening acts did very little to engage the crowd during their performance. They were stiff, with very little movement on stage. Despite their music sounding great, I felt disinclined to approach the stage and rather stood in the back having a beer and talking with some friends. It wasn't until Rivals, the band prior to RJA, came up that I really felt urged to get up close, because man did they put on a show.
Established bands typically have a great grasp on having great stage presence. They have the benefit of playing recognized music that the crowd can sing along too, and can feed off of the crowds energy. Smaller, local bands do not have that same benefit. They have to transfer their energy off of the stage to the crowd to get them engaging back with them. (At one point of the show, a band with absolutely no presence asked the crowd if they were ready for RJA, and received a minimal cheer despite having a decent crowd, whereas the band prior had a smaller crowd but a bigger cheer due to great presence).
How to engage/Improve your presence:
Start by conveying energy, whether that be moving around, head banging, jumping, etc. (Make it genre specific, country artists should not perform like heavy metal groups).
Teach the crowd a lyric and have them sing along. This makes the crowd feel like part of the show, AND gets them to learn one of your songs. Maybe even gets it stuck in their head and they stream it on Spotify over and over.
Perform as if you are playing to a sold out arena. Whether there are 50,000 people, 500, 50, or 5 your presence should be the same. It might seem uncomfortable jumping around with a 5 person crowd, but treat that opportunity as practice for engaging with bigger audiences.
The front man is the focal point:
The person who should be the most engaging is the front man. Usually this is the singer/guitar player. Whoever is the focal point of the audience, is where the energy needs to lie. If the bassist is spouting energy, and no one is looking, then he's not engaging. It needs to start with the front man, and then spill out over the rest of the band, not the other way around.
Keep all of this in mind the next time you are performing and find out the things that work and tweak the things that don't. Figure out what gets the most engagement out of your audience and go from there. At the very minimum, by practicing your presence on stage, you will feel more confident and energetic in your music which will cause you to sound better.
So Eager Nation, I want to hear from you…what are your tips in regards to stage presence? Send me a tweet @JosephRocha42 or go to eagermusic.com/contact
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