Reply To: How would you change JoCo’s concert setlist?
Yeah, he opened with Baby Got Back in Pittsburgh, the only concert that I’ve been to so far. I enjoyed it but was kind of disappointed that it replace ‘The Future Soon’. But eh, I’m sure I’ll hear ‘The Future Soon’ live in Toronto, that was the only show this year that he didn’t play it.
As for a proper encore, it would go kind of like the NYC one – impromptu and unplanned (Mandelbrot Set w/P&S, Welcome to the Machine and A Talk with George!). First of May and Sweet Caroline are great songs, but they’re pretty much expected as the encore now; except for Cincinatti – they didn’t get an encore due to time constraints – but instead of First of May and Sweet Caroline they got A Talk With George, Millionaire Girlfriend, and BILLS, BILLS, m.f.-ing BILLS which I would be very happy to hear at a concert.
I’m not saying I don’t like the songs. I’m saying I like surprises, and I’d rather hear them than something I’ve come to expect to hear. And I’m not saying JoCo isn’t full of surprises. He does a lot of neat things at his shows, from special guests to wacky instruments to rickrolling the audience, but as a big fan who watches his vids online there’s only so many times I can be surprised by those (hint: once, and most of the time the name of the Youtube vid gives it away before it happens). Still awesome seeing it happen live, though. Oh, and certainly him opening with Baby Got Back as opposed to The Future Soon was a surprise, so that was cool.
So what it comes down to is this poll and discussion really shows the preferences of the hardcore fans for the most part (who actually visit the forums), whom even in a JoCo audience I expect to be the minority (though probably a larger percentage of the crowd than most other artists’ concerts – completely baseless assumption, by the way). To a casual JoCo fan all of these things are awesome since they may have only heard a couple of his songs, so it really doesn’t matter. They may even PREFER a cover song or Still Alive or Tom Cruise Crazy, because it’s one they’re more likely to recognize or connect with.
But I think that as an artist making a setlist, it’s important to keep a balance between pleasing the hardcore and the casuals. So this is what the poll is trying to do – help give JoCo an idea of how the hardcore would like his setlist modified, so maybe he can give them a little bit of that as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if after this we heard Octopus at least once.
I’m being really wordy today.