What is involved when prepping for a live performance?

[Rudolf Wagner]

Hi Jung, like you said, it depends on the type of performance, how long we’ve been playing with the other musicians for, how familiar we are with the set list, etc.

As a general rule we normally practise with the whole band once a week for several hours (when we’re performing – we’re currently still on a break). If we get a new line-up together or have a particularly important show coming up with a new setlist, we sometimes have a lot more and longer practise sessions until everyone is comfortable and grooved in.

On the other hand, during our Cavern residency for example, we had weeks where we (as a group) didn’t have any band practice at all, because everyone knew their part so well and we didn’t change the setlist each week.

It really depends, and of course I’m not talking about the practising everyone should be doing daily on their own anyway 🙂 Band practise was more of a way to go over details, work on performing, harmonies or refining arrangements and to get tighter as a whole.

Preparing for something like the Steve Harley tour is a lot different. Most of the songs were completely new to us, and we started learning our parts months ahead. We had the recordings and our ears to work with and to figure out chords, harmonies and our percussion, guitar and vocal parts.  At one point we met up with Steve where we’d go over the tricky bits and any questions we had, or what he wanted us to focus on.

Then, two days before the tour started, the whole band got together (some flying in from South Africa) and we basically practiced for the whole 48 hours 😉 It was a tough schedule but we made it work. For things like that it is absolute key to come well prepared!

We had a ton of improvisation going on on that tour as well. The music and setlist really allowed for that. For the majority of MLT gigs, that is normally less of an element, though of course no show ever really sounds the same 🙂

[Jung Roe]

Hi Lisa

Thank you so much for that very in depth insight into the practicing and labor of love that goes into preparing for your performances!  It’s inspiring to say the least to read about how you and Mona, people of your tremendous caliber as musicians, approach performing live music.  I recall a few nights ago listening to that awesome interview you did with Robert Rodriguez, when you ran into Mona’s room and you both sang “Two of Us” just like that so effortlessly, I say effortless because it sounded so great, it made me wonder just what goes into being able to stay on top of your craft to be able to perform like that live so wonderfully, even with all the other projects and things going on.  I really enjoyed reading your  explanation  here 🙂 🙂 🙂

One suggestion I just thought of was perhaps doing a behind the scenes video in the future one day when time permits of one of your song recordings (cover or original) for an album from  the writing or arranging, to the practice sessions, to the final recording.  Something similar to one of your behind the scenes videos about a music video, but instead about a song track recording for an album.

[Timothy Connelly]

Lisa,

That’s an extraordinary answer! It goes into a kind of detail that really answers the question. I can’t speak for everybody but I’d rather see you give those kinds of answers to questions that call out to you than give hurried answers in trying to answer every question. You haven’t answered a number of questions I’ve asked– that’s more than all right when I see this kind of response.

God only gives us 24 and I can how much you guys are doing to enrich our experience here. Thank you very much for that!!