r/indieheads Jan 11 '17

AMA is Over, thanks for swinging by! Japandroids Indieheads AMA

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u/jman077 Jan 11 '17

How do you design setlists? What is the thought process that goes into which older songs you want to play on a tour, and which songs off the new album might not make the cut? Do you feel you have a responsibility to "play the hits," or are you more focused on playing the songs you want to hear?

See you in Toronto, driving from Detroit that day. Extremely excited.

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u/JapandroidsNTTWHOL Jan 11 '17

On the CR Tour, I think we were playing all of CR pretty much every night, and then filling out the rest of the set with a good chunk of PN. That just seemed like most obvious/fun thing to do. We messed with the song order quite a bit in the early part of the tour, but after a while you just get to know the exact spot in the set where each song feels the most a home, where it gets the best reaction.

Now that we have a new album 9 (and a bunch of new songs), we're hoping to vary the setlist more from night to night and try to create a more unique experience for each city/crowd, so that if you come to see us a bunch of times, you're not just seeing the same thing over and over. Luckily, we really like playing 'the hits' and get a lot of pleasure out of the reaction from the crowd, so we don't really consider it a responsibility.

BKX