Why leave the stage and make the fans cheer for five minutes, when you could just play another song in that time?
uh, to give band members a 5 minute break? so they can:
- rest their throats/fingers/arms
- consume drinks/drugs/etc
- change shirts
- talk/plan the encore
- take a step back and gauge the crowd
- etc
encores have become the modern-day intermission - just shorter, people don't have time to file out of the room and then back in. in the end, i'll bet they allow the band to play longer and us to get more music than if they played straight through (90 minutes straight through, vs. 120 minutes with two 5 minute breaks... i'll take option B).
Ding ding ding. How many actual real encores do you think you've seen in your life (i.e. not planned ones). One or two, tops?
yup, that sounds about right. best one i ever experienced was peter gabriel, montreal forum, summer of 1992 or 1993 - he did two encores, and after 10 minutes the crowd was still going bonkers, ao he came back out a third time and did a dreamy solo version of "biko" on the keyboard with the proviso "fine, one more, but this is to calm you lot down so you finally go home!". it was beyond awesome.