Setlist Planning Quotes

I was always against starting the show with new material because the fans don't know it. They just look at you, and it's not explosive.

You become acutely aware, if you're touring a lot, that you need new songs to invigorate the live show. And make it interesting for yourself, too.

I've seen bands come out and begin their concerts with these long, slow, boring songs. Are they kidding, or what?

No matter where I go, I never write the setlist until I'm at the venue.

I honestly haven't thought much about what to play and where, perhaps i should...it seems like most musicians are better at that than I am.

I've always had a bazillion songs in my archive, but I want to play people stuff they know. Now that I have two albums' worth of material, that gives me freedom to compose a set that's more well-balanced and build a show rather than just a recital of some songs.

With Whitesnake it would have been inappropriate for me to have played Deep Purple songs, although I did at the beginning because I didn't have enough Whitesnake songs.

I would find the idea of compiling a setlist that doesn't wildly excite me to be too restricting.

The problem with the Moodies is not what to play, it's what to leave out! That's always difficult. We stopped having support acts many years ago just because of that. We needed getting on to two hours; there's such a big catalog to call on.

I was looking at the setlist backstage and I just said, 'Oh my God, the first six songs nobody's gonna know.' But they all knew the lyrics. It just blew me away.

At Coachella, I want to start separating how I do a big festival set from how I do a club set.

At the end of the day, they're happy if you do the obvious songs towards the end of the set and you've got to try and make yourself happy by doing certain songs at the front end of the set.

Through the years I've accumulated this big bag of songs. When I go out I do close to two hours, and it's all just attitude - and up-tempo. I've accumulated so many of those types of songs now that the show just gets off with a bang, and I'll only do two or three ballads the whole show.

I've been thinking about songwriting more in terms of playing it live, and how it will sound as a band.