This blog was originally published on the Data Beats Medium page. To explore more data behind the music we love, check out the Data + Music project.

Have you ever considered how much thought a band gives to the songs they play in their live sets? How much does their setlist vary for each venue they play on a tour? As their new material dries up and they rely on the old favourites, do they stick to the same old formula, or do they mix it up night after night to stop themselves getting in a rut? And what about those myths — have the Grateful Dead really never played the same set twice? Was Billy Joel right when he said he parted company with Elton John because “I got tired of doing the same show over and over again”? And do REM really never play “Shiny Happy People” live?

Thankfully setlist.fm has been crowd-sourcing setlists stretching back decades, so we have some data we can use to start answering these sorts of questions. We took a look at over 200 of the most popular artists on setlist.fm (~180,000 sets) and analysed how their sets have changed over time, mathematically comparing each set with the previous one to determine a “similarity” measure between consecutive gigs.