Thread: Costuming for bands

Greetings ladies

Just curious how many of you out there have an opinion on what the band is wearing.

Thanks

S

I prefer to see a band dressed formally (but I'm OLD of course, ha ha). Suits and ties. When the going gets hot as it surely will, off with the jacket, loosen the tie. Matching suits or uniforms really not necessary. There's just something about the suit and tie that says, "I'm a serious artist and I'm here to give an important performance along with this dancer in the $1000 costume." As opposed to, "I'm only the drummer, it doesn't matter what I look like as long as I play good, and I want to be comfortable so I'm here in these ripped cut-offs. Yes it's hard to look away from my muscular hairy legs."
Rosette

In addition to dancing I play in the band as well and am the only woman band member. The guys do try to coordinate their apparel for performances. For outdoor community shows where it is likely going to be warm they wear their "puffy shirts" with colorful ethnic vests. For colder weather it is black turtlenecks with black pants. For indoor it could be white dress shirts, either of the two choices above, or bronze silk dress shirts with black dress slacks for more formal events. The shirts have standup collars so no need for ties. I have a bronze silk tunic with embroidery and sequins that I wear for those occassions. When they went out and bought their bronze shirts, however, they never let me know, never asked me what I thought. So I had to make mine as well as make one for the young teenaged boy we had in the band at the time.

Most of the time I take my costume cues from the troupe we are playing for. If they are wearing bedlah and lots of rhinestones I wear one of my Hanan saidi dresses with a hip scarf or a paillette dress. If the dancers are wearing 20 yard skirts with choiis and harem pants, then I do the same. I also sometimes wear a fancy coverup over harems or leggings. Generally I do wear stage makeup although not quite as much or as vibrant as when dancing unless, of course, I am going to get up from the band and dance too.

Souzan

it doesn't have to be that complicated. shirts and black trousers are fine. if you want to go more ethnic, embroidered vests are a standard option :)

I like what you are wearing in your picture ;-)

I think it would depend on the venue and type of music.

In a dark, small, smokey mixed culture restaurant/club, I remember the band not really coordinating their attire (b/c each had come from respective other gigs) and the overall environment was uber casual.

On stage or in a more formal environment, a world fusion band I regularly performed with wore black trousers and black, short-sleeved [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guayabera"]guayaberas[/ame].

Black clothes work well. Around here lots of musicians tend to show up super casual, wearing shorts and Hawaiian shirts and such on stage. I don't like that. Americanistan is kind of old-school, and we have two to three women in the band, so we tend to wear ethnic-looking caftans or cover-ups and the guys wear dark puffy shirts and dark pants and ethnic caps.

Yes I require the band to wear black slacks, white shirts black neckties. I know way back in the day I had seen two bands, The Sultans and Trans Arabian Sound. Both bands wore tuxedos. I was looking at photos from a large well known event and the some of the musicnas were wearing jeans t-shirts with some sort of logo work or slogans on them. I am not trying to be snobby but show the dancer some respect. I know most of yall scrimp and save, plot and scheme to get that costume from (insert expensive costumer here) and hope if fits and where it to perform in. I also think its diesrespectful to the culture.

S