One Night, One Vote: The Setlist We Didn't Choose (You Did)

Somewhere between soundcheck and doors at the Agora in Cleveland, our tour manager handed us a tablet, sighed, and said the five words that changed the night: "The fans are winning."

If you missed it, here's the setup. For one show — and exactly one show — we scrapped the setlist we'd rehearsed for weeks and let the crowd vote on every slot, live, from the floor. Scan a QR code, pick a song, watch the results climb the big screen above the stage. Democracy, baby. Raw, unfiltered, occasionally chaotic democracy.

It sounded fun in the group chat. It was terrifying in practice.

The Campaign Trail Got Weird Fast

The vote opened an hour before showtime, and within twenty minutes it had the energy of a small-town mayoral race. Fans weren't just voting — they were campaigning. Someone printed actual flyers. A guy in a homemade "TRACK 7 OR RIOT" shirt became a minor celebrity in the merch line before doors even opened. Two separate groups tried to coordinate bloc voting through a group chat that, by all accounts, had devolved into infighting worthy of a reality show reunion.

By the time we walked out, the leaderboard looked nothing like any setlist we've ever played.

The Deep Cuts Ate the Hits

Here's the part nobody saw coming: the singles got buried. The songs that get us on radio playlists? Sitting down there in the bottom five like kids not picked for dodgeball. Meanwhile, "Paper Anchors" — a B-side we recorded in a converted storage unit in 2019 that maybe eleven people have streamed on purpose — came in at number two. Number two!

Bassist Dani caught me mid-song and mouthed "they know the words" during the second verse of "Paper Anchors." Every single one of them. That's a feeling you don't forget, and honestly, it's the reason we'd ever consider doing this again.

The Snub That Still Stings

Now, the controversy. Our closer — the one we've ended nearly every show with for three years, the one with the singalong that gives our keyboardist chills — didn't crack the top ten. The crowd had the chance to vote it in for the encore and collectively said... nah. One fan we grabbed after the show put it perfectly: "We can hear that one anytime. Tonight was about the rare stuff."

Fair. Devastating, but fair.

Our keyboardist is still not over it. She has referred to the evening, repeatedly, as "the incident."

What We Learned in the Fire

Playing a crowd-voted set is like driving a car where the passenger picks the turns. There's no warm-up arc, no build, no moment we've engineered for the big emotional swing. The pacing was a rollercoaster designed by committee, and somehow — somehow — it worked, because the crowd wasn't just watching the show. They'd built it. Every cheer had a little extra ownership in it.

Would we do it again? The band vote, appropriately, is split. Our drummer says never. Dani says every night. I'm somewhere in the middle, which is where this band usually puts me.

But here's the thing we keep coming back to: the name of this band has always been about that last bit of patience before you've had enough. That night, a few thousand people in Cleveland decided they'd had enough of the hits and wanted the deep cuts instead. And for one night only, that was the right call.

Drop a comment and settle the debate — does democracy belong on stage? And if we ever do this again, start your campaigns now. The flyer guy already has a head start.