When evaluating a live performance, you break it up into 4 section: Communication, Stage Presence, Venue and musical competency.
Communication:
Communication between band member can be just as important as the communication between the audience and artist. Many times, a lot of players may need to retune for other songs but if the band members don’t communicate, they won’t know when everyone’s ready to play and this can result in looking unorganised and messy. Having band members interact with one another can also give quite a friendly atmosphere which is pleasant for the audience as it’ll just give off a positive vibe to them.
Communication between the artist, possibly the band members, and the audience is also crucial! Like I mentioned before, there will need to be little breaks in concerts, even if it’s just so they singer can catch their breath or get something to drink, so you don’t want the audience to be stood there with nothing to do. A lot of the time, it’s really nice to just ask how they are or to simply introduce the next song so they can get ready for it, like if it’s a sad song then they made get glow torches out etc.
Stage Presence:
Stage presence is how you perform and how the stage is looking during your performance, i.e. the lights you choose and if you have any choreography or not etc.
This is particularly important if you’re performing a lively song! Many times people will have dancers, their band, lights, smoke or even fire sometimes, to enhance the stage and give it the “wow” factor. However, with a lot of stage performance, comes a lot of risk so there will need to be several checks and risk assessments to minimalize anything going wrong.
On the other hand, some people prefer it to just be the musicians and the audience, with no stage presence really. This works well for intermediate performances, when the audience is up close to the artist, because you can project more emotion and allow complete submersion into the music instead of a flashy stage taking the attention away.
Venue and Audience:
Many people think that the bigger the stage and venue, the better the performance but I’d disagree.
If the song is emotional, they seem to work a lot better in intermediate venues, like halls and bars, because it makes the room feel much more like “you and artist” because it’s much more enclosed and you’re closer to the performer.
However, you can have whichever venue type to perform any songs but you need to understand what kind of people make up your audience, like how old are they and what kind of things they like. For example, if your audience was full of metal heads and you decided to perform a ballad, the odds of them liking your performance are very slim because it’s just not the type of music they’re in to. In order to have a successful performance, make sure you perform in front of people who can appreciate what you have to deliver, like only really perform a ballad in front of people who are fans of people like Adele or at least really like ballads too.
You also need to be aware of how many people will be attending to see your performance. This is important because you want to ensure you have enough tickets up for sale and have picked out an appropriate venue type, like if you’re a big artist who knows you’re going to have a lot of fans wanting to see you perform then you’ll need to book a venue like an Arena. This helps prevent overcrowding but also under-selling.
Musical Competency:
Musical competency is basically everything music: rhythm, harmony, structure, timbre, texture etc. So, how does the band sound and how are they playing well.
All of these are just elements of the song that needs to be checked off in order to give a good performance of the song. For example, if the band is in time, play the song in the right order and are projecting a synth sound in places where a synth is supposed to be played, then their musical competency is accurate.