How does Mike determine what songs will be in a setlist?
MP: For me, writing the perfect setlist is like solving a crossword puzzle or a jigsaw puzzle. I spend many many hours going through the various setlists, trying to balance each of the albums, trying to give different audiences things that maybe they haven’t heard like, especially when going through an area for the second time on the same tour. So every time we get into a town, I have to look back at the setlist for what we did the previous time, determine all the songs we didn’t play last time through and then create a setlist from those songs. I try to make sure that we’re offering a completely different setlist to the repeat visitors, because a lot of our fans like to go to multiple shows. At the same time, still balancing it enough that it will be something that will be satisfying for somebody that is seeing us for the first time. But every night is a completely different setlist and usually there is a method behind the madness of why certain songs are played on certain nights. [No
Related Questions
- How did Mike, John, Jordan and Tony determine what direction to go in when they got together for the first Liquid Tension Experiment album?
- Can I determine through the information on records, tapes, compact discs and sheet music which songs are represented by SESAC?
- Does Mike like to play old songs or does he prefer to play more new songs?
