Building a theatre set list from a 45-year catalogue

An album sequence is for the living room. A set list is for bodies in seats. Black Horse opens with recent favourites and travels toward dance cuts. Live, I often start with a recognisable mid-tempo song so late arrivals still hear a complete thought, then move to rock, then a ballad, then a closer that lets people stand.

Kissing and Never Be The Same work as contemporary openers. Come on Babe and Baby Gonna Rock are hinges: they change the temperature of the room. I Want to Run Away is an encore that still makes sense if half the audience came for flowers-and-music family stories rather than club mixes.

Lily the Dancing Machine and the Turbo Club Mix are for rooms that want to move. We do not force them on a seated memorial-adjacent private event. That is respect, not a lack of catalogue.

Hay girls guy voice is a palette cleanser — a reminder that the catalogue includes humour and vocal casting, not only heartbreak. Glorious Days is chosen as one mix, not three, unless the theatre specifically wants a suite.

If you are booking, tell us the room: seated theatre, standing club, or private dinner. The set list is a letter to that room. Contact with those details saves everyone a rewrite the week of the show.

After a gig, the player is how people catch the songs they missed. Point them to Discography, not only a social clip. Clips vanish. Notes stay.