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[SOUND]
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> Great show.
>> Thank you so much.
Anything can happen in an encore.
It reminds me of a time I was in a place called Papillon Harriet's.
It was kinda near the end of the set.
But this whole time, there's all these marines that are off duty,
they're in the crowd, and they're like, [SOUND] we hate this.
We just wanna have dinner and we wanna whatever.
And I'm like, come on, man.
I'm starting to feel pretty down on myself.
These guys are all boozing it up, getting wasted and I’m like, okay, I respect that.
But at the same time, I’m on so many mushrooms that things are starting to
pulsate and I’m feeling like my head is kind of somewhere near my feet.
And I go off for the encore, come back, and for some reason they’ve had a change
of pace cuz I stood on a table and all of a sudden they’re all gathered around me.
They loved the show at this point and
I'm like, holy ***, all because of the encore?
Finished the last song, I jump off the table, and
these guys are all my best friends at this point, they're like, Har Mar, Har Mar, and
they carry me off into the desert just right out the back door.
I don't know, man, that's just the power of the encore.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> [MUSIC]
>> The encore is a chance to push past the end.
>> It's that one last [LAUGH] moment for them to think,
maybe I'll get that song that I want.
>> Encores, I find them kind of ridiculous.
>> Everybody's still calling your name because they want their money's worth.
[LAUGH] >> I'm gonna give you my everything.
I feel like you're giving your everything.
So we've set off this energy, let's keep it moving.
>> It isn't just walking off and walking back on.
I try and make use of it.
>> There's this weird moment when you get off stage where you can reflect
on the show and how it's going.
>> At different times, I think the encore is possibly seems sort of Las Vegasy and
sort of cheesy.
>> If you walk off stage and there's no real off stage, it's kind of stupid
to just stand there and wait for people to clap loud enough for you to walk back on.
>> People sort of almost expect it at shows and we're the same if we go and
see someone I'm sure.
>> It's tradition, right?
I mean, it's rock and roll tradition.
>> If they don't come out and
do an encore it's like, you feel almost like you didn't get a full show.
>> The nights that stand out to me now are actually the nights where, for
whatever reason, there's a subtle change and I think, no,
they really want us to come back.
They're really pushing hard tonight.
>> You really want one more?
This is weird?
That's the way it's supposed to be.
>> [APPLAUSE] >> Being in the audience myself for
those times, there were times when I really cheered as loud as I possibly
could and banged on every surface with my hands, with my feet,
try to add to this surging volume.
And you really did feel like if you could yell just a little bit louder,
that the band, who you could tell was just out of sight, would actually hear it.
And then maybe you would make that difference that would actually have them
come back out.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> [MUSIC]
>> God bless you, see you later.
>> [APPLAUSE] >> It's a similar feeling when we're going
back out to the encore as we got off the stage.
With that little time between, it's like, ooh, ooh.
Unless it was a terrible show where it's like, but if it was a good show,
then it's like, ooh.
Go back out.
It's great.
People wanna hang more.
It's great, it's strange but it's great.
>> One more, is that okay if we do one more?
>> We want more!
[APPLAUSE] >> Before the encore, I run off,
immediately grab some water cuz I'm so sweaty it's pretty gross.
Take a deep breath and then hear the audience clapping and
as soon as physically I'm able, we'll be like, okay,
let's do this, I got this, I love this, let's go.
[APPLAUSE] >> I like to have the little
break in between, cuz I get so physical on stage, but it's kind of weird that we
all pretend to walk off stage, like we're not coming back and do the encore.
It's such a convention at this point.
>> But sometimes just the mood is right and you just want that like rock star
feeling and so you can let the audience build themselves up into a fervor.
>> [MUSIC]
>> The origins of the encore go way back to the classical music
traditional concert hall settings.
>> After someone would sing a beautiful aria the crowd would ask them to
do that part of it again.
>> There really wasn't the expectation of an encore,
it wasn't assumed that people stand up and demand more.
>> There was no recorded music and so the audience kept wanting more, and more,
and more.
And they would get these repeated encores that would just last forever.
>> Some opera houses were so put off by the endless encores that asked so
much of these performers, that they'd put up signs, no encores!
They'd say get the heck out, we're not performing Madam Butterfly in its entirety
again for the fifth time tonight.
>> There's a famous story about Toscanini, while conducting an opera he
refused to allow one of the singers to do an aria over again,
after the crowd called for an encore.
Someone challenged him to a duel, right there during the concert.
>> I think now it's kind of just expected.
But I really do think that's why it still is considered,
you wanna make it a moment for people.
And it all started back in classical music because it was so special,
you couldn't listen to it again.
>> [MUSIC]
>> I always think of Peaches when I think of a fantastic encore.
It was 2004, something in there.
I went to see her perform in Montreal and she invited a guy on stage.
And she gave him the microphone, and we've all seen it a million times, the person
that comes on stage and they're not very good but everyone cheers them on anyways.
This guy was phenomenal.
>> Sucking on my [BLEEP] like you wanted me, calling me all the time,
my phone [INAUDIBLE] >> And she's just watching him so
intently, and by the time that he had done like a verse and a chorus, she took him
down onto the ground and got on top of him and started making out with him.
And I was like, this is literally the best encore I've ever seen in my entire life.
>> Early in the rock and roll era a lot of acts, get them on,
do the hit, get them off.
>> The whole famous Elvis has left the building quote
is actually tied directly back to the encore.
>> He wanted the crowd to perpetually want more and
wanted to keep that special power that Elvis had for the next show.
>> The encore became more of a thing when it was about the star doing his
performance.
>> [MUSIC]
>> James Brown, along with all the other things that he invented,
he invented the James Brown Encore.
>> I remember at a very young age, seeing James Brown,
some live performance with my parents in the living room.
And on TV, there was this moment when he breaks down and
when he drops on his knees, you can see, you can't drop to your knees lightly.
I asked my mom, what's going on?
They put this cape over him like a blanket.
They were helping him.
This guy came out.
And then he won't have it.
>> And he runs back in and gets the crowd going and does 15 more songs.
And then you think he's about to leave and he does it again.
>> No, no.
He doesn't say this out loud.
He's acting it all out.
All his gestures are larger than life.
>> Comes back to the mic with even more energy and just people think you're done
and you can't physically anymore, and it's amazing.
>> His handlers come out,
put the cape around his shoulders Tried to lead him offstage.
Each time he gets a little further down the hallway.
>> There was probably times in that moment when he actually really didn't think
he could go.
And he counted on the power of that ritual to continue.
>> The fact that he made the encore,
this ritualized bit of theatre where he's not trying to fool anybody.
After awhile people know, yeah, he does this every night.
>> Stuff like that I love.
Playing with the energy of the crowd.
>> I did a take on that in the Lady Shot Me video.
When I'm at the lowest point of the song where I can't go any further,
they bring me out a cape, walk me off stage, and then I go tackle the mike.
And that's all an homage to James Brown, for sure.
[MUSIC]
>> [LAUGH]
>> [MUSIC]
>> I was young, I was a kid, I was with my uncle Bill back home in Knoxville.
I'd started singing on radio and television when I was about ten.
And I went out with my big guitar and my uncle Bill to sing my song.
And so I did and encore and they kept bringing me back.
And I didn't know but the one song at that time.
I mean, I kept singing it over and over.
We were heading back to the car, my uncle Bill and I.
I remember looking at him and saying, they like me didn't they?
I think I could be a star.
And he said, well, that's what I've been trying to tell you.
I look back on it now, and I don't think it's cuz I was good.
I think it's cuz I was little.
And they were just being nice.
But that made me think that I maybe had something.
[MUSIC]
[SOUND] >> When I think of Springsteen,
I think encore.
You know what I mean?
He's just like the guy who never stops.
>> Certainly, he chose to make endurance part of his whole thing,
it’s part of the concept.
It's not just one little side part of it, it kind of informs and
amplifies the whole message of his music.
Some day he will do a 24 hour encore and then he may die but
that will be certainly a good way to go out.
>> [APPLAUSE] >> All right!
This is called, I'm a Rocker.
One, two, three, four!
[MUSIC]
>> Our stepdad was a big fan of Bruce Springsteen.
He wanted to take Sarah and I, and I remember him prepping us.
>> He played for, I think, four hours.
His encores would be as long as a lot of bands sets.
>> He was in Minneapolis a couple months ago and he was on his third encore, and
he brought a 90 year old lady on stage to dance with him from the audience.
He's all over the place.
>> He's crowd surfing through the crowd and he's like 65.
I've just never seen anybody give that much to a crowd ever in anything.
>> I can remember that during the encore, my stepdad holding on to all of us, and
it was just like his favorite thing in the world.
>> He used to wait till everyone left except for three or four people and
the whole band would come back out, and he'd blast another 30 minute set for
20 people.
[MUSIC]
>> He influenced a lot of people with his choice to do these super marathon encores.
Bob Dylan has done waves of three, four encores at the end of a show.
Robert Smith and the Cure have done these epic encores.
[MUSIC]
>> Some performers use the encore as a place to express all
that excess performative energy that they have, that other people just don't have.
[MUSIC]
>> During the encore, it's a chance for me to release.
Guitars are distorted all of a sudden, and the drummer's playing fast.
And it's ridiculous, and where are their shirts all of a sudden?
>> Plus, it's an opportunity for us to cut loose.
[MUSIC]
>> The encore is a chance to kind of just take the entire story they experienced and
encompass it one more time, so it's almost like a synopsis of the show but
on steroids.
You wanna just leave them being like, wow.
[MUSIC]
>> [APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC]
>> The worst encore performance I ever saw in terms of overall disastrousness,
not music, was when the Red Hot Chili Peppers played Woodstock 99.
There were candles handed out to the crowd, a crowd that had been pent up for
three days.
People were not in a mellow feel the vibes kind of mood.
Especially, since it was hot sun, people had been doing a lot of chemicals.
And the Red Hot Chili Peppers come out
after candles have been handed out to the crowd.
And the song they do is Jimmy Hendrix's, Fire.
By the end of the song, lots of stuff is on fire.
The entire festival essentially burns to the ground.
It was an encore thing that you'd plan to be a big explosion of crowd energy.
It can be very much the wrong kind of explosion of crowd energy.
[MUSIC]
>> One of my favorite things to do is the anti-encore.
>> We used to do the Top Gun theme song for 40 minutes at Terminal Five.
And it cleared half the room which it was like, that's kinda the idea for
me at least.
>> I've definitely done upwards of 20 or
25 minute versions of Knocking on Heaven's Door.
[LAUGH] >> We saw
Ramstein at a festival in Germany, and for their encore,
the lead singer rides this device that looks like a huge ***,
and then he [BLEEP] all over the audience.
>> The device does.
>> The device does.
>> Just like do the whole song and then start it again and just keep going until
the whole crowd kinda files out cuz they know it's never gonna end.
>> I have a friend who said, always leave them wanting less.
And I have experimented with that.
It doesn't work as well as leaving them wanting more.
If I did have a bad show, then it's, yeah, now I'm gonna *** their eardrums up, or
something.
It's, like, really?
>> That kind of stuff is kind of like where I have the most fun in the encore.
We used to like, let's do this tonight.
You gotta entertain yourself sometimes.
>> [SOUND] >> One of my favorite encores I've ever
seen was last year on the Stevie Wonder Songs in the Key of Life Tour.
The audience has been through the whole gamut of emotions.
Just because everybody has their song on that album that makes them cry.
So everybody was puffy eyed.
And we're laughing.
And just telling blind jokes and just being hilarious.
Everybody leaves the stage.
And Stevie's out there, he's like all right *** this,
Stevie Wonder isn't performing any more tonight.
Now you're going to watch a guy named DJ Tick Tick Boom.
And that's me.
Give it up for DJ Tick Tick Boom.
And everybody's like so confused, they're kind of like, okay, DJ Tick Tick Boom.
And we're all screaming.
And then he just starts DJing through his catalog of other hits that he's had.
He was like his own wedding DJ for [LAUGH] his own life.
And then slowly the rest of his band was coming on stage and dancing.
It was like a big dance party.
And he was like, you want DJ Tick Tick Boom to play some more?
And everyone was like, yeah!
>> [APPLAUSE] >> And
then he drops the intro to Superstition.
Out of nowhere the entire band's playing all 30 people are playing Superstition for
everybody at the end.
That was one of the coolest encore ideas I'd seen in a long time.
[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC]
>> The Encore has been through a wild ride.
There's been ups and downs since its birth in classical.
Now, it's more or less an established tradition,
but there remains that possibility.
Then an encore might not happen.
It's not guaranteed.
That's what keeps it alive.
That's what keeps it exciting.
>> There needs to be a little chance that you won't play the encore.
And there are times on a tour where I don't play an encore cuz
it wasn't that kinda night.
I don't want it to be like, they get it every night regardless.
If they don't earn it, they got a great show.
>> It's like, show is over, get the *** out of here.
>> If I don't go out and do an encore,
somebody's gonna punch me in the mouth when I walk out to go get a drink.
>> It's a rite of passage, but to get to that level when you can actually do it and
know everyone's gonna stay.
>> If you feel like you want more, let it be known.
Encore or bravo or come out, ***, yeah.
>> It has to remain unstable.
Because if you just can count on an encore then it's not an encore.
Then it's just a show.
>> And it's a way to sorta stop things after the excitement has happened.
And kinda go, did you guys enjoy this?
>> You could do something that you wouldn't necessarily do as
a part of the show.
>> We're always thinking of ways that we can either surprise people or,
I don't know, maybe poke a little fun at the institution.
>> I want to do the whole bring the girl out.
Take her shirt off, do the whole R Kelly thing, make out, dry hump her.
And then maybe that'll be the encore.
We asked the audience after the last song to be silent.
We walked off stage and we stood for what felt like an eternity and
then when we walked back on stage they just erupted.
>> We invented a new style of encore about a couple of months ago actually.
So we were walking out to What is Love by Haddaway,
the song from Night at the Roxbury, and just started shotgunning beers.
And that was the encore, and that's it.
>> I never thought about the encore so much as I just have now.
I'm probably gonna think about it now for another two or three weeks.
[LAUGH] Come up with some nice stuff.
[MUSIC]
Maybe if you use a little imagination you can think about life itself
as a kind of series of encores.
>> [APPLAUSE] >> There's
a time right now where if you give everything you have it will make
something happen.
How many times do we get those opportunities in life to be able to give
everything, where it actually has an impact?
It doesn't happen all the time, I don't know if it could happen all the time.
But when you do have the chance and you can realize it,
you have to give everything you have.
It's not a choice then.
You're obligated by this gift of existence.
>> [APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC]
[APPLAUSE]
[SOUND]
>> Mike, Ben and
I were playing a show in a venue above a bowling alley.
The intensity of the crowd was causing the floor to bounce, sway and buckle.
And the only way I could describe it as though an entire room
turned into a waterbed, and there were people swinging from the rafters.
And one gentleman in particular landed on a pile of people, and
at that moment the floor gave out.
>> Hey there, Diane.
>> Hi, Andrew.
>> Look, my 300 game photo.
Remember that?
>> Not really, no.
>> Sewage pipe split open, unleashing a lot of urine,
a lot of human waste, probably some fresh water.
Long story short, a rat climbed out of the wreckage, perhaps for
the first time ever in its life, a chipper kind of expression on its face,
and sort of attacked a female bowler, because she had a checkerboard pants.
Took two of them and it became the king or the queen of her pant leg, scurried up.
[MUSIC]
She flung her bowling ball at the rat on her leg and
it slowly rolled down the bowling alley.
Perfect strike.
She bowled a 300 game and if you don't believe that,
I actually have the bowling ball right here.
I travel with it wherever I go.
On tour I visit as many bowling alleys as I can so
I'd be able to stay connected to the fear and intensity I felt during that encore.
[MUSIC]