Stage personalities / Grabbing the audience?

Hey guys,
Just a question to the professional muso's out there...
When starting at small venues, what techniques and stuff do you use to grab the audience attention without the use of music. Like stage personalities, Visuals, image ect... ???
List a few things that we can work on... Ill list mine soon!
Thanks

I dont think members would feel comfy sharing there gimmicks for others to use.

Us non-professionals have ideas too because we are the target of the stage presence when we attend a concert. Do you want to hear those too?

gs: wth?

I'd say you can never go wrong with midget wrestlers!

But in all seriousness if you want to be taken seriously you have to act professional. Maybe toss out some promotable stuff for your band, t-shirts, stickers, cd's.

My fav local band growing up was a band called the love rocket and house of large sizes. I still got one of their stickers on the back of my old Gibson marauder.

I play on an "upside down" guitar.

On a serious note...
I've only really played in front of a real audience two or so times, during a school concert last year (I got to play a song and a solo), and at our last Jazz Orchestra Performance. (A full audience for once!)
But (unless you are in a shredding mode) try not to look down. Don't watch your hands, don't watch the floor. If you have to look down, do it as you toggle an effect or distortion.

(I'm stealing this from RZK)
Keep your eyes on the audience. Make eye contact. If you have to see your fingers, do it out of the corner of your eye. Move around. "Dance" to the music. The more you enjoy it, the more the audience will.

I can tell you what not to do....

Background: I was playing bass in a acoustic-ish outfit in the late 90's. the singer/songwriter had tons of talent but would easily be set off, would show up drunk, high, would mouth off swears etc etc.

Getting a gig was not that hard (mostly we played for beer or a $20 bill). I all ways figured we could play for cheep on the first show, they would see were awesome and invite us back and offer real money. We had a little following too. But even at that price we never got invited back for a second show.

Before I quit, we were playing coffee shops on open mike night. Most of that was in a small mid-western collage town too. Not sure if that matters.

Well, i like sharing ideas on this forum in general, but if members feel that theres certain stage performance tricks that they won't share, thats fine...
We for instance...
Bought some decent lights that go with sound... not so expensive and looks awesome!
Get friends to start dancing and then before you know it, everybody dances!
Offer a free cd for the best dancer, ....... that always works!.

This thread is nothing to do with the music side but just performance tips.

I like your lights idea, that's got to add a good layer of atmosphere.
When I go to a show I want the band to act like we're included in a special event, not lucky recipients of the band's time...so...talk to me. All you have to do is give a little personality, like tell a story about something that went wrong with the band recently, to get your (some) of your audience to feel an affinity with you. More affinity, more likely to come back next time.

The other thing that gets me into the show is when the band acts excited. Moving their knees specifically.

I honestly 100% don't even care if the audience finds me entertaining, since I'm not going to grab everyone's attention-I just grab my guitar, plug in, turn up, and ROCK.
I think that is overlooked now in stage presence, is just the ability to rock. It's sort of like dancing with your instrument. No I'm not talking about pre-planned headbanging(that was the 80s' thing), I'm talking about letting the music take over you whilst playing and simply not giving a rats ass about what anybody else thinks.
At least, this is what I always thought what rocking out was \m/

Thanks case211, thats part of the performance, if the people see you enjoy the music, they will also be in the vibe. It's all about that energy. If only you enjoyed playing a live gig and nobody else, you still had the better time, screw everyone else :)

But little things do matter, I play way better when people are into the music, i Feel that energy! when people hang on every note, it's like a big natural energy sharing thing... I think the spanish flamenco artists call it "Ole" . you always hear them shouting it out while they play.

One other thing i can also recommend doing, always have some sort of weird instrument in your "set". After about 6 of your songs, you can pull out this "weird" "foreign" Instrument and everybodies attention will be grabbed instantly!

Anyways, would appreciate any other tip's and tricks! This is really getting somewhere :)

The best thing you can do in my opinion is just know the music you're playing like the back of your hand, and have fun playing it dude. If you have fun the audience will notice and they'll get off on that, then it'll just give the energy back to you, back to them, on and on. Just have a good time with it and don't stress yourself out thinking of ways to impress people other than playing your tunes.