Encore (concert)

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The encore is an additional extra performance of a musical piece at the end of the regular concert, which is not listed in the event setlist, from the French encore, which means again. (The French-speaking people themselves, however, use the Latin word bis, either une autre (another one) or un rappel in the same circumstances.) The artists usually perform an encore when the audience requests it by long applause or standing ovations in order to thank the audience for their appreciation. In most cases, encores have been planned for in advance. If the applause is extraordinarily long, however, unplanned additional encores can happen. This is sometimes recognizable when the performers are seen conferring about which song or piece to play next. Some musicians then simply replay a well-known song from their repertory.

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Soloists or classical music groups like orchestras often show again their artistic potential by playing fast, high or loud pieces in the encore, but sometimes they also close the performance with slow and calm pieces to let the applause ebb down. It is also common to play the hit songs of a band or the most famous pieces of a composer in the encore. A well-known example is the performance of the Radetzky March and The Blue Danube at the end of the Vienna New Year's Concert by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra; both pieces are never listed in the official setlist, but are traditionally played every year.

In most circumstance it has become quite standard for most rock and pop groups or artists to give an encore performance, especially in large setting such as stadium performances. Some rock or pop bands include their encore as the second half of the concert. For example the Jamaican reggae musician Bob Marley and his band The Wailers were known to play the concerts of their last two tours in 1979 and 1980 in two halves: after the first half was performed they stopped performing for some minutes to tune their instruments again or to have a break, while the audience was demanding for more. They continued to play the concert with the encore which lasted about an hour. Sometimes they even played one or two additional songs after the actual encore. Similarly, former Guided by Voices frontman Robert Pollard generally plays songs from his solo career for the first half of his shows, and then, for the inevitable encore, will play a lengthy selection of Guided by Voices songs, with the two halves generally having roughly equal duration. The 'stage vernacular' for when the musicians leave the stage as if they've finished the show, only to come back on again is "false tabs".

Of all the extremely popular musical artists in the past 60 years, only one was known for never returning to the stage to do an encore, and that was Elvis Presley, a practice his manager Col. Tom Parker felt was the best manner by which to leave audiences wanting. The phrase Elvis has left the building, used at the beginning of his career (when he was not the headliner), and followed by a plea for them to return to their seats, and stay in the building so as to watch those that followed Presley's act, was then used, (once he became the headliner, when it was invariably followed by a polite "thank you, and good night"), to imply to those present at the concert that there was not going to be an encore and that, therefore, they should move on and leave the premises, since he'd already left the building himself.