Halfway through a recent Bonnie Raitt concert, a woman shouted, “Play ‘Angel From Montgomery.’” The song, a John Prine cover, was a track from Raitt’s album 50 years ago that became what she calls “so beloved.”
Looking out at the crowd, Raitt said cheekily, “Well, if I was a betting woman…”, earning her a raucous ovation. While she’s not wedded to playing the hits (Raitt left out two of her biggest singles, “Love Sneakin’ Up On You” and “Not the Only One”), she can’t imagine a show without “Angel.”
“I’m lucky enough to have songs that make people mad if they don’t listen to them — it’s not a bother, it’s an honor,” Raitt says. “I keep investing in them every time.”
The phrase “set list” has a double meaning: it’s the cast of songs, but for most artists the set list is also pretty set; they may rotate some songs, but they generally stick to what they’ve rehearsed.
There are exceptions, and not just jam groups like the Allman Brothers Band or the Grateful Dead. “Bob Dylan doesn’t have a set list and I don’t think Bruce Hornsby has had one for 30 years,” says Raitt, who has five Southern California shows from Tuesday through Sept. 17, including Sept. 14 at Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa.
Raitt’s band constantly changes instruments for different keys and tunings, so jamming like Dylan would be impossible. But she likes to keep the band fresh and usually changes a couple of songs, sometimes not telling the band until just before or even during the show. “I have my guitarist stand there with two instruments and I point to the one I want.”
Last year, Elvis Costello played ten nights in New York without repeating a single song, playing more than 200 numbers. Squeeze's Glenn Tilbrook admires him, but hasn't gone that far. “It's a cool thing, but we're a lot slower to move,” says Tilbrook, whose band recently played four shows in Southern California.
Squeeze sounds best when they play the same songs every night. “We relax when we know what’s coming and how to play it, and as you get comfortable, the playing starts to get better,” he says.
Still, he plans to try what Costello did, giving fans advance notice that they’re going to experiment with their sets. “But I don’t know how many people would like us to do that, and while I’d love to expand our reach, right now we’re still trying to get as many people as possible.”
In fact, while many hardcore fans go to shows hoping to hear popular tracks, most fans arrive hoping to hear the hits (these days, of course, you can go to setlist.fm to see in advance what you're likely to hear). Artists must balance those competing needs, along with their own desires.
Raitt is impressed by her friends Jackson Browne and James Taylor, who often have to close their concerts with 45 minutes of non-stop classics. “But they still disappoint people because there isn’t enough time for all their hits,” she says. “So I don’t know how the Stones or Paul McCartney do it.”
Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze
(Barry Brecheisen)
Tilbrook says that, beyond the big hits, it is impossible to guess what everyone wants to hear. “You have to go with your instinct, although we have not always been right and in the past we have played some songs that were clumsy and ill-advised,” he says.
I was discussing this years ago with Roger Daltrey of The Who, who said that opening every show with The Who's first single, “I Can't Explain,” was, for the band, its own tradition and a nod to its deep history.
Though they’re perpetually required to play “Baba O’Riley,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “Pinball Wizard,” Daltrey always pushed for more obscure tracks to be included. When I told him how excited my kids and I were about the inclusion of “Slip Kid” and “A Quick One, While He’s Away” on that tour, he explained that there were two obstacles to such additions: One was that guitarist Pete Townshend was always reluctant to relearn his own old songs, and the other was that while a few thousand audience members like me were jumping out of our seats, “everyone else was just going to the bathroom.”
Raitt says she keeps the songs she hears most fresh “because I naturally sing them a little differently and play the guitar solos a little differently every night,” she says. Occasionally she tries a more conscious change, such as performing “Something to Talk About” with a ska beat on tour. “We had fun doing it, but I couldn’t know what the audience thought and you can’t interview them to find out if they liked it or not,” she says. “I think you have to keep those iconic songs pretty close to what people came to hear, since they’re the ones paying for the tour bus.”
Tilbrook says that, remembering his father’s love of jazz, he is now “more vocally playful than ever” on the band’s hits. He is also incorporating into the band’s efforts the wilder, more experimental guitar playing he reveled in on a recent solo tour. “I’d never opened that door before and I really like it,” he says. On those solo shows, he experimented with his biggest hit, “Tempted,” and “it worked so well that I said to the band, let’s try it this way.”
While Squeeze leans toward playing songs people know, he has been digging deep into the catalog for songs like “What Have They Done,” from the soundtrack of a 1980s British animated film. But Tilbrook is pragmatic about his choices. One forgotten tune he wanted to revive on this tour was “Rose I Said,” but he ultimately rejected it.
“It’s a tongue twister to sing, with a lot of words,” he says. “Instead, we’re doing ‘Some Fantastic Place.’ You have to make comparisons and say, ‘I need more room to sing so I don’t fall on the floor.’”
Tilbrook adds that since seeing Radiohead at Coachella a decade ago and realising they were padding songs with pre-recorded material as a “flavour enhancer”, Squeeze have done that on about half the songs. “That makes a huge difference in the breadth of your palette to work with,” he says.
Roger Daltrey and guitarist Pete Townshend of The Who performing at the Hollywood Bowl.
(Courtesy of Alex Mónico)
Though Raitt chooses songs that interest her and her band, she never forgets her audience, conscious of not playing too many songs in a row without something familiar.
“I’m also aware of the number of repeat shows,” he says. “There are people who haven’t seen me in 20 years, but a lot of people saw me the last two times. You have to rotate enough songs so that people don’t see me wearing the same shirt or playing the same song as the last time I was in town.”
Rhythm and variety are crucial to a successful set. Daltrey doesn't even sing two songs in the same key back-to-back. And while Squeeze now do slower stuff than they did in the past, Tilbrook says it's all part of an arc: “You pick up the pace from song to song, then you do it again and then you drop down to something slow and start again,” he says. “Psychologically it works well and I hope those bridges are interesting.”
Raitt also talks about “setting a tempo and then building up,” noting that playing an outdoor festival where everyone is standing in the sun requires an emphasis on more upbeat tunes. “I love playing for people sitting in a theater because I can be quiet, contemplative, and emotionally deeper for a longer period of time,” she says. “It feels like a sacred space and you can achieve that oneness of vibe with the audience.”
He typically works in a few songs from his latest album that resonate with fans, reserving an acoustic section for the blues and folk songs — “but I won’t put them out too soon” — but is especially conscious of spacing out his ballads like “Angel” and “I Can’t Make You Love Me.”
“I don’t play a lot of sad songs in a row,” he explains. “It just puts people off, even me.”
That means some of her favorite ballads like “Going Wild for You Baby” and “The Bed I Made” don't make the list because they're not well-known enough to surpass the big names.
Raitt’s most popular single, “Something to Talk About,” is more pop than most of her songs, but fans love it “and it’s a palate cleanser, a little relief between the other songs. So it makes me happy to play a song that brings joy to people.”
He also ends his show on a high note, often with a cover of BB King’s “Never Make Your Move Too Soon” or Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House.”
“I can’t play ‘Dimming of the Day’ and then say ‘See you later,’” he explains. “I want people to come away with something more upbeat.”
