The Ten Commandments of Rock

This list is courtesy of the John Debella Show morning DJ on WMGK, a Philadelphia Classic Rock radio station. My favorite is of course the first one...Shut up and sing

Enjoy:

The 10 Commandments of Rock

1. Thou Shalt Not Preach: Yes just like you, we’re concerned with Global Warming, Free Speech and the Third World. But we paid to hear you sing and play!
2. Thou Shalt Play The Hits If you're a band that has 20 or more charted songs, we want to hear 10 hits before you play some new song we don't know, or that deep track from the album that no one bought that you love so damn much!
3. Thine Opening Act Shall Relate If you're going to have an opening act, find one that plays the same style of music as you do. George Harrison could get away with Ravi Shankar, you can't. Nor can you give us some half assed hip hop bands...we came to rock!
4. Thou Shall Know What City You're In Enough Said!
5. Thou Shalt Own A Timekeeping Device Our tickets say 8 o'clock show. That means at 8:01 we want someone to be playing music LIVE on stage. Use this same timekeeping device for set changes and encores. Don't go take a shower and have a sandwich while we're all out here clapping.
6. Thou Shalt Play The Original Version (The Layla Commandment) We came to hear the kick ass version you originally recorded, not some mamby pamby slow version. So unless you promoted this as an all acoustic show, if it rocked the first time...it better rock tonight!
7. Thou Shalt Not Play Medleys Hey, make a decision. Play the old stuff or don't play the old stuff. Don't put 5 of your first singles in a half assed 5 minute medley and think you did your job.
8. Thou Shalt Replace Correctly We understand this is Rock and Roll. It's a rough life. People die young or they check themselves into Betty Ford and never check out. We get it. But, if you get a new singer, try to make the effort that he should at least kinda sorta fit the band.
9. Thou Shalt Sing And Not The Audience We didn’t pay $200 for a pair of tickets just to hear 20,000 drunken people try to remember words from 30 years ago! It's your mic...you sing into it!
10. One Man Doth Not Make A Band. Even if you are an original member. If the band originally had 5 members and now you're the only one touring YOU'RE NOT THE BAND!

--gfo