Tim Stopulos

We gotta pretty cool gig at Lucky's. My friends and I pretty much have the bar to ourselves. Yeah, there's a table or two of outsiders, but once they see what our group is doing, they pretty much always join in. It's like sitting around at a buddy's house playing tunes, only the place doesn't smell weird and they never run out of beer. We get to play whatever we want, as many of our own songs as we want, and everybody's always happy. This is gonna be a really good time when summer rolls around.

One thing I've noticed playing here is that the requests come in waves. There's the First Wave, which happens early in the night. This is where I'm most likely to get stumped. During the first wave, people haven't had too much to drink, so they can reach deeper into the archives for songs. The atmosphere is little more mellow, so they don't care whether the song is upbeat or not. And they don't care if it's a singalong. Here's the kind of music that's requested in the first wave:

First Wave:

Coldplay
Wilco
Radiohead
Less-popular Dave Matthews songs
John Mayer
Originals (our music)
Any ridiculous indie song or lesser known Springsteen song

Best thing about the First Wave: It's the most musical portion of the night.
Worst thing about the First Wave: The crowd's enthusiasm is more subdued, and I'm guaranteed to not know a few of the requests.

In the second wave, things have started to pick up. People are getting more into it. Spirits are high. At this point in the night, people are ready to get the party started. They get out of their seats, they start moving around. The bar gets a little smaller. The cliques are broken down, people forget about who they came with and just want to have fun. Being able to sing the chorus is becoming more and more important in requesting songs. More important yet is the beat. The perfect Second Wave song has an awesome beat, a few people know the verses and everyone knows the chorus. Example: 'Hot in Herre' - Nelly.

Second Wave:

Maroon 5
Nelly
Justin Timberlake
Sublime
Any ridiculous 90's radio hit you can think of. (Last night's perfect example: MMMBop)

Best Thing: People are way into it (dancing, singing), and it still sounds like good music (besides MMMBop)
Worst Thing: No real downside...this is like the honeymoon period. You have your buzz, no sign of a hangover.

Third Wave rolls around, and it's a free for all. If people don't know every word of the song, you probably shouldn't play it. You should be able to end the night on every song. For instance, after most songs during this wave last night, I said "Goodnight everybody!!", even though we still had a bunch more songs to play. For the third stage, it's less about bands and more about songs. You won't hear bands requested. In the First Wave, you will. At that point, they'd be happy with any song from that artist. In the Third Wave? Nah. You have to know that song. Nothing else will do. Luckily, I don't necessarily need to know the words, cuz everyone else does.

Third Wave

Piano Man
Wonderwall
Under The Bridge
Twist and Shout
Any ridiculous 80's hit you can think of. (Last night's example: Mr. Big. You might say 'Yeah but you said no bands in the Third Wave'. True. But when someone says "Play Mr. Big!!", you don't think 'Hmm...which Mr. Big song should I do'. You have one option.)

Now these are just rules, and are definitely meant to be broken. And the waves don't always come in perfect order but....they usually do. We might hit the Third Wave at 12:00 and then will have to scrape by for the last 20 minutes. Still, this is a pretty good rule of thumb.

Come out sometime and see if you can feel the waves.