Performance or Narrative?

After much thought, I like the idea of a silent film type thing and have decided to do something like it. However, I don't think this would really work for many fully performance based shots and scenes, so I will have to scrap my plans for the band performance shots that I made a short animatic of. Though this is rather heartbreaking, I think it will be for the better. I will not get rid of performance shots altogether though, as i think it could work if the vocalist sang just a line or two to the camera before something more narrative based happens.