Q. What makes the difference between a good gig and a great gig?

A. Stage presence.

I’ve been preaching this to my students for years. But preaching it and being able to tell them how to fix it are two different things. Yes, I could offer a few ideas just by watching videos of great bands.  But that was just enough to get a band’s stage presence from bad to good; not from good to great.

Then I heard Tom Jackson of Tom Jackson Productions speak at the New Music Seminar. Tom’s latest claim to fame is he works with Taylor Swift on her stage performance. But claims-to-fame and credibility are two different things to me. I was looking forward to what he might teach me.

And, boy was I schooled! But I’m not afraid to admit that. The man is brilliant!

Tom calls himself a “live music producer.”  He does for the live performance what the studio producer does for the recorded performance.  What’s the number one job of the studio producer?  To make the music SOUND great, right? So the job of the “live music producer” is to make the music/band LOOK great. 

After the seminar I went to Tom’s website to learn more about his services. I liked what I saw and I bought his DVD set. I shared it with my musicians from Black Velvet Deluxe and they got stoked. They quickly adopted of couple of the tips and it made their next show better. So I emailed to inquire about hiring him to work with  Black Velvet Deluxe.

One of the first questions he asked was, “Does the band want to do this or do you want the band to do this?”  Good question. I told him we both did. After a few more questions, we were on his calendar….and in his enewsletter database.

This past Wednesday I was reading the enewsletter and I saw that one of Tom’s staff was going to be doing a seminar the very next day in Minneapolis, where I live most of the time. If Amy was half as good as Tom, I knew it would be time well spent.

I called my Music Director and asked him to come and to get in touch with our more advanced students and have them come to.  About eight students showed up to the seminar. Sadly, the place was pretty empty. I say “sadly” because I know a lot of musicians would have benefitted from being there.  I don’t know if it wasn’t very well promoted or what.  But I tend to think I’m fairly well dialed in to the music scene and no one I knew was aware it was happening.

Amy had the band, a teen band comprised of five siblings, play a song. Then she joined them on stage and had them play again. As she would see an opportunity to make a moment better for the audience, she would stop the band, provide direction, and then have them try it. The process took about 45 minutes for one song. And the changes that seemed so big when Amy was providing direction, seemed very subtle when the band incorporated them into the song.

The band embraced Amy’s suggestions but some people in the audience were grumbling how it was too choreographed for their taste.  At that moment it made sense to me why Tom asked me if Black Velvet Deluxe wanted to work with him or if I, as their manager, wanted them to work with him.

If the band isn’t open to new ideas, Tom’s concepts are a waste of time and money.

But Tom said something early in his presentation, and Amy repeated it in her introduction. They both asked:

“How much time do you spend getting your recording right?”

“How much time do you spend writing your music?

“How much time do you spend on your stage show?”

Then they ask, “How much of your revenue comes from selling CDs?”  And “How much of your revenue comes from your live shows?”

Generally speaking most bands make 90+% of their money from gigging (that includes selling their CDs at the gig as opposed to selling CDs through retail outlets or paid downloads.)

So if you make 90% of your money from your live show, why don’t you invest any time or money into making it an amazing experience for your audience?