What Makes The Perfect Live Show?

Posted 4 years, 5 months, 1 week, 3 days, 10 hours, 53 minutes ago by PackFM


PackFM Quote In POUND Magazine. [CLICK THE IMAGE TO READ]

In a recent issue of Pound Magazine, I was asked to give my take on what makes a good hip hop show. I was honored to be asked because if there’s one thing I pride myself on, its my live set. However, this wasn’t always the case, it’s been an ongoing learning process over 10 years.

My first on stage experience was horrific. There was a girl I liked in college who was throwing a fashion show and she wanted to have rappers perform. So I figured that was the best way for me to impress her. Unfortunately my set was awful, I was walking back and forth looking at my feet while rapping over The Roots’ “Clones” instrumental. What’s even worse, the people in the audience were looking at me like a 7 headed alien. The problem was I wasn’t engaging the crowd at all, I thought I was just there to rap, right?

Wrong.

Over the years I learned through open mics and battling that the way to win over the crowd was to bring them into the experience. A lot of performers get that confused with just talking to the crowd and sometimes that works, but after watching a shitload of shows I can tell u that talking can easily be overdone and people will start thinking “will you just shut the f*ck up and rap?” What I mean by engaging the crowd is making them feel like they’re a part of the show, either by crowd participation, talking to them, or even simple things like expressive body language and eye contact. Basically people paid good money to see a show and they could have stayed home and listened to someone just rap for free on the CD.

On A Personal Mission

I’m on a personal mission to put on the perfect live show. There’s nothing like the feeling you get after connecting with a room full of people and them showing their appreciation through cheers. After every performance I watch the tape and regardless of how well things may have gone, instead of patting myself on the back, I pick it apart and look at the things I don’t like then figure out how I can prevent that from happening again. I also study videos of other peoples shows/concerts who I respect, and I take notes.

To this day Busta Rhymes has one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen and I always turn to his footage first when looking for inspiration to revamp my sets. But the best way to learn what to do and what not to do, is pay attention to the crowd, because nobody knows what the audience wants more than the audience. If the crowd isn’t feeling something, it isn’t because they’re stupid (even though sometimes that’s the case), it might be because the artist isn’t presenting it properly.

So what is the perfect show anyway?

For me, the perfect show is when the people walk away with an experience that can’t be gotten from a record and remains embedded in their brain forever. The perfect show, just like the perfect album, will take the audience on a journey through different moods and emotions, highs and lows. The perfect show leaves not only the artist with a sore throat, but the crowd as well, from screaming and cheering. Because as much as I love performing, the show isn’t just about me, its about yall too. (awwww) Now of course there’s a hell of a lot more to it than this, but I cant give away the secrets can I?

Hmm someone should make a DVD or something about this and release it early ’08. ;)

Get @ me.
Pack.