Blog: Non-Duplication Of ROCK - The STATS!

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There has been a distinct lack of NEW BLOGS just lately, and this has been because there hasn't been a huge amount of NEW STUFF to impart. I mean, I have been BUSY, but it's mostly been working hard on the new Data And Doctor Doom show and trying to get bookings for it, which has all been jolly exciting for ME, but may not be all that interesting for you, gentle reader, to keep reading.

However, a THORT did occur to me which might (eventually) be of (some) interest. Doing a new show means I'm going to need a new Special Button for The Database Of ROCK. The Special Button is a bit of JavaScript wizardry what I made for myself many years ago when I got fed up of typing in the same setlist for every performance of My Exciting Life In Rock and realised that this was a mundane activity that I could automate. Hmm. Sounds like the sort of thing you could make billions of quids out of without knowing what it means.

ANYWAY. Thinking about setting that up for Data And Doctor Doom led to me PONDERING setlists further. Doing the shows means/meant doing the same setlist again and again, but I wondered how often I had done the same setlist APART from those? Whenever I'm busy doing lots of gigs I do TRY and make the shows unique, but surely there's only so many times you can start with The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B) and end with The Lesson Of The Smiths without repeating the songs in the middle?

THUS this very morning I set out to find out, and had a DELIGHTFUL half hour or so of writing some SQL code (NB I am currently on Annual Leave so am free to ROCK OUT in this way as much as I like) to work it out. The results were Quite Interesting, in that obviously the SHOWS all repeated themselves multiple times, and there were several instances where I did the same individual song on its own as an entire set (e.g. going to computing events and just doing Hey Hey 16K) but once you'd taken those out it appears that I have only repeated a setlist THREE times!

Just three times! That sounds KRAZY, but SQL don't lie! To be clear, this is looking at repetition of EXACTLY the same songs in the same order and the same number, so if I repeated a setlist one time but did an ENCORE - sorry, I mean, was FORCED to do an encore after a ten minute ovation and against my artistic principles - then that would not count. But then that's fair really, as it IS a different User Experience and it's not like that scenario happens a lot!

With all that in mind then, let's look at the gigs where this mighty PAIRING occurred:

Repetition ONE: the RER Tour
The first time this EVER happened was while The Validators were doing our ACTUAL TOUR to promote Regardez, Ecoutez et Repetez. This was the time when we were at our most ACTUAL BAND, with a new album being played as ALBUM OF THE DAY on BBC 6 Music and a VAN to travel around in, and so it is probably understandable that we would fall prey to that most ROCKIST of activities and do the same setlist on almost consecutive evenings. For LO! The set we played on May 22 2009 at Mother's Ruin in Bristol was then exactly repeated the day after next on May 24 2009 at The Wilmington Arms in London! It's not like we HAD to do this for the sake of the lighting and special effects guys or anything, and I do have a vague memory of our Setlist Czar Mr T Pattison being quite AGAINST the idea, but I also quite like the fact that we DID do it here at the one time in our long careers when we COULD make legitimate claim to do so!

Repetition TWO: Security
The next time this happened was later that same year, when the gig I did on 18 June 2009 at Chinnery's in Southend was a direct copy of one I'd done a few months earlier on 13 March 2009 at The Boathouse in Cambridge. That year was my second most BUSY for gigs, with 69 across the course of the twelve months, and I did do quite a few gigs then where I really had to WORK to get people onside, and so would often revert to setlists like this one which were THE HITS. I think we can forgive the babylike almost 39 year-old me for falling back on security in this instance.

Repetition THREE: Pure Coincidence
The last time this happened was on 22 January 2018 at The Green Man in Sheffield when I inadvertently repeated a setlist I'd done a few months earlier on 17 September 2017 at The Bill Murray in London. The first gig had been a show with Mr G Osborn and Ms J Lockyer, while the second had been the birthday party of Ms P Blackham, so clearly this was a TOP PALS setlist designed to DELIGHT one and all - to be honest it's not that dissimilar to the HITS HEAVY set of Repetition TWO, but for rather different reasons!

So what can we GLEAN from all of this? I think the main thing is that my EFFORTS to at least try and do a different set each show have paid off! This is Quite Surprising to me as I always BERATE myself for having grand plans to do weird and wonderful unheard songs and then end up doing the SAME ones, although this shows that I do at least do them in different orders. The other thing is that there does at least appear to be a REASON for doing it on the very rare occassions when I have.

ALSO I personally take two things away from this. Firstly, that it was a whole lot of FUN doing loads of gigs one after the other, especially when The Vlads went on tour in a VAN like a Proper Actual Band, but that goodness me it fills me with FATIGUE just THINKING about it now. Secondly, it reminds me how much fun STATS can be. Put those two things together and what do we get? Why, the possibility of doing some gigs where the same songs are repeated in the same order and it all involves a lot of STATISTICAL ANALYSIS! What are the chances of THAT happening eh?

posted 26/3/2025 by MJ Hibbett

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