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From: monkee fan
Confirmed: monkees
Date: 01 Feb 2010
Time: 22:56:34 -0500
Remote Name: 151.205.187.115
I was at the show and it was an excellent performance but could you stand to hear a couple of personal opinions about what I think you could do different that might lead to a better experience for the whole audience? If your goal was to reach a broad audience, I think it was a mistake to wait to the very end of the show to play all the hits and better known songs. There were a more than few people in the audience who were turned off by all the B sides and rarer album tracks in a row, and left early and unsatisfied. They was also groaning at all the trivia about chart postion and such in between songs. The casual fans don't care about that stuff, and the hard core fans already know it, so it didn't seem to go over well. The set list order really just seemed geared more towards the hard core Monkees fan, while in my opinion your audience was mostly casual fans. Most of the crowd seemed to be baby boomer and older, that came into the city from out in NJ or LI or Staten Island and did not want to wait 3 hours to finally hear Last Train To Clarksville, Daydream Believer, I'm a Believer and the other songs they know. They don't want to stay out too late on a Sunday night because they have a bit of a commute back home and have to get up to go to work Monday morning. When you finally did play the hits, the audience went wild, got up and danced, and sang along. That should have happened much sooner in the set. I think the best approach is to do all the hits and well know songs early on to make the majority of the audience happy, and then leave the rare stuff for later for those inclined to stay late. I say this as hard core Monkees fan who loved to hear "If I Ever Get To Saginaw Again", but also as a pragmatist about what the majority of the audience wants and what will serve you well to get opportunities to play a Monkees show. I hope my comments are taken without malice and I would love to see you guys play again.