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Classic Rock Bands - Obscure Covers That Work For You?

EdO.

EdO.

Jan 21, 2016
2,515
4,600
Podunk, Ks just slightly south of KC
#1
Not sure this is the correct forum for this, mods please move if necessary.

The band I'm in plays classic rock but with (what I assume to be) a bit of a twist - we try to do mostly stuff you don't/won't hear other similar bands cover (we do some originals too but kind of in the classic rockish vein). Stuff that if you've ever heard it the response we're going for is "Damn, that's a great song! Haven't heard that one in a long time, cool!" Stuff you just don't hear other cover bands do. It's a fine line I know and yeah, we do some more "common" covers as well, just enough to keep it reasonable. But the majority of it is stuff that was kinda or should have been hits, better known album cuts etc. Some examples -

Bigger Than My Body - John Mayer
Radio Free Europe - REM
Dizz Knee Land - Dada
Steady As She Goes - Raconteurs
Good Love Is On The Way - John Mayer
Longview - Green Day
Say It Isn't So - Outfield

You get the idea. Works for us in our area, booking a couple times a month which as a fairly newly organized band seems pretty good for right now. So my question is - what obscure tunes is your cover band doing that work well for you even though on the surface you might not think they'd be valid choices?
 
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#3
We do the same thing also, if another cover band is playing the same song locally, we will drop the song off our set list.
When I was playing in another band I had someone tell me that they had heard the same song we were playing at 3 other clubs that they were at on the same night, it was then I decided that I did not want to play the same crap that other local bands were playing.
 
#4
My band started as each of us picking songs we liked playing, with the understanding that we may wind up playing some tunes we don't personally like. We really weren't looking at "building a setlist for gigging", so as you can see...it's resulted in a pretty unusually eclectic list.

  1. Good Lovin' Gone Bad - Bad Company
  2. Run To You - Bryan Adams
  3. Hard To Handle - The Black Crowes
  4. Teaser - Tommy Bolin
  5. Hey Baby - Ted Nugent
  6. Fire Woman - The Cult
  7. Love Removal Machine - The Cult
  8. Jailbreak - Thin Lizzy
  9. Twilight Zone - Golden Earring
  10. New Year's Day - U2
  11. One - U2
  12. Mistreated - Rainbow
  13. Interstate Love Song - Stone Temple Pilots
  14. Plush - Stone Temple Pilots
  15. Gimme Three Steps - Lynyrd Skynyrd
  16. It's Not My Time - 3 Doors Down
  17. Kryptonite - 3 Doors Down
  18. Here Without You - 3 Doors Down
  19. Counting Blue Cars - Dishwalla
  20. Just Got Paid - ZZ Top
  21. White Room - Cream
  22. Badge - Eric Clapton
  23. The One I Love - REM
  24. She Ain't Got - Original
  25. Give Me A Reason - Original
  26. Stop and Stare - One Republic
  27. Learn to Fly - Foo Fighters
  28. Another Rainy Night - Queensrÿche
  29. All Over You - LīVE
  30. A Passage To Bangkok - Rush
  31. Drive - Incubus
  32. Big City Nights - Scorpions
  33. Holiday - Scorpions
  34. Message In a Bottle - The Police
  35. Good Love is on the Way - John Mayer
  36. Rebel Yell - Billy Idol
  37. White Wedding - Billy Idol
  38. Just What I Needed - The Cars
  39. Lonely Street - Kansas
  40. Surrender - Cheap Trick
  41. I Want You to Want Me - Cheap Trick
As you can see, we do quite a few "wait, what...?" songs to go with the "really popular" ones. Now we don't play out as much as we'd like to, and we certainly don't play every song at every gig...but we've had lots of people appreciate on us mixing things, like Lonely Street and Teaser.
 
#5
I live in a City where every friggin band plays a revolving door of the same stuff ( doobie bros,pink floyd,CCR, ) the list goes on and on........frankly I think most of them truly believe that's all punters want, but just shows a total lack of creativity,
3 songs I played last Saturday no one here does that went VERY well,
Hollywood nights- Bob Segar,
Call me the breeze- Lynyrd skynyrd,
Route 66 - Nat King Cole (played fast and straight)
I come from a Metal background so putting some drive and excitement Into these made people boogie!
 
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#8
Wow. Now I am feeling old. John Meyer and Green Day are now considered classic rock?

But I'll play.

I've been mostly in originals bands. But we slmost always did a few covers to give the audience a point of reference or for an icebreaker.

Some numbers that worked particularly well in various bands were:

Heart Full of Soul - Yardbirds
Suffragette City and Rebel Rebel - Bowie
Rock and Roll Woman - Buffalo Springfield
All the Young Dudes - Mott the Hoople version. (This song should be our national anthem.)
I Do the Rock - Tim Curry
Good Lovin' - Young Rascals
Victoria and Sleepwalker - The Kinks
Somebody - Aerosmith
Signed Sealed Delivered - Stevie Wonder
Stand - Sly and the Family Stone
Such a Night - Doctor John
Easy Money - Rikki Lee Jones
The Tale of Job - Seatrain

And if you need a slow blues rocker, this one always brought the house down. Alvin Lee's The Bluest Blues

 
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#9
40Hz said:
Wow. Now I am feeling old. John Meyer and Green Day are now considered classic rock?
Click to expand...

I used the term "classic rock bands" as a broad generalization. To me anything rock that's a few years old and anything short of metal or country pop falls into that broad generalization, but however you wanna define it. I'm really thinking more in terms of "rock stuff you don't hear every other band" do than "classic rock" per se.
 
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#10
EdO. said:
I used the term "classic rock bands" as a broad generalization. To me anything rock that's a few years old and anything short of metal or country pop falls into that broad generalization, but however you wanna define it. I'm really thinking more in terms of "rock stuff you don't hear every other band" do than "classic rock" per se.
Click to expand...

Ah! Good! Now I feel far less ancient. ;):laugh:

Left a few others off my list above:

Mr. Soft by Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel. There's a couple of different versions he does. This is the odd duck version we used.

Also Protection by Graham Parker and Away From Home by Klark Kent.
 
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#11
EdO. said:
Not sure this is the correct forum for this, mods please move if necessary.

The band I'm in plays classic rock but with (what I assume to be) a bit of a twist - we try to do mostly stuff you don't/won't hear other similar bands cover (we do some originals too but kind of in the classic rockish vein). Stuff that if you've ever heard it the response we're going for is "Damn, that's a great song! Haven't heard that one in a long time, cool!" Stuff you just don't hear other cover bands do. It's a fine line I know and yeah, we do some more "common" covers as well, just enough to keep it reasonable. But the majority of it is stuff that was kinda or should have been hits, better known album cuts etc. Some examples -

Bigger Than My Body - John Mayer
Radio Free Europe - REM
Dizz Knee Land - Dada
Steady As She Goes - Raconteurs
Good Love Is On The Way - John Mayer
Longview - Green Day
Say It Isn't So - Outfield

You get the idea. Works for us in our area, booking a couple times a month which as a fairly newly organized band seems pretty good for right now. So my question is - what obscure tunes is your cover band doing that work well for you even though on the surface you might not think they'd be valid choices?
Click to expand...

We do stuff like Hash Pipe, Life During Wartime, Use Me, Cover Me, I'm Tore Down
 
#16
Suffragette city by Bowie
Love is the drug by Roxy music

I don't think of suffragette city as obscure, but people seem surprised to hear it. We also do Bowie's "moonage daydream" but I think the jury is still out on that getting a big response.
 
#17
Richland123 said:
My current band plays Little Lady by Duke Jupiter and it always packs the dance floor. People love the song even when they hear it for the first time. I played it when it was new in 1984 and we decided to do it with my band now.

Click to expand...

I'm in Rochester, where they're from . "I'll Drink to You" is another one guaranteed to pack the dance floor.
"Never Been Any Reason" by Head East is an unconventional one that always goes over well.
 

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