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Classic Rock "dead"?

#24
Roadkill said:
I was talking to a guitarist earlier who's classic rock band recently broke up. Apparently they were packing bars in 2010 and 2011 - but this year seeing like 5 people at gigs. The singer quit to devote time to his family as the fun had gone out of it :( . Anybody else seeing this happening, especially around the Hartford CT area?

I didn't think yet another classic rock band would be particularly viable anyways and was just putting one together to jam them old songs in the basement - my main project is trying to do contemporary pop which there seems to be little competition around here for...
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To some extent, classic rock is dead. Nothing clears a dance floor quicker than ZZTop, Zeppelin and Bad Company. We're finding the bar scene responding to songs like "Brick House", "Bad Girls" as well as current pop tunes. We do no more than two blues songs in our whole set list because no one, other than the band, is interested. If you want to gig consistently, it's all about what the crowd likes.
 
#26
klokker said:
Not dead here. There's a sizable minority of teenagers who are really into it.

When I was a kid I would never have listened to my parents music.

Very different today, IME.

We still get decent crowds who love the old stuff played by old people.
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Same here. I also have the same experience as the person who said they get good response with a mix of classic rock, newer country, and some newer pop/rock.

I don't think classic rock will ever die, not in our lifetimes. There were just too many really good songs that came out during the period 60s through 80s for them to fade out. I have kids ranging in ages from 13 to 27 and they all love classic rock (more like classic pop and pop/rock), newer country, and newer pop and rock. IMO there will always be people of all ages who love classic rock.
 
#27
Roadkill said:
I was talking to a guitarist earlier who's classic rock band recently broke up. Apparently they were packing bars in 2010 and 2011 - but this year seeing like 5 people at gigs.
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So people loved "Sweet Home Alabama" for 30-odd years and then suddenly in 2012 they stopped liking it? Not likely....

I remember back in music school 20 some years ago in Jazz Improv class the teacher telling us that he almost felt bad we were playing tunes out of the Real Book as those songs were passe and within a few years all the people who liked them would be dead. But yet when I go to a jazz club I STILL hear half the repitoire coming from the Real Book.

However, just because I think classic rock is NOT dead does not mean I think it would be a good idea to put together a classic rock cover band with the idea of working all the time. That decision would be very region specific...
 
#28
I observed something at a friend's gig (more than my own, which have been few and underattended so far...): older folks will dance to older music. Younger folks will dance to anything.

Just because the song is old doesn't mean the younger crowd doesn't know it and like it. But the older crowd doesn't often listen to newer music and won't get up to dance for it. I think there's a "sweet spot" for music's appeal by age, probably music that was new when today's 25-35 year-olds were about 13-18, or a little older than that. That would suggest a range of about 1984-2005 or so. But that's guesswork.
 
#30
BogeyBass said:
and apparently 90's songs are considered classic rock now.
I guess.
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This. Reminds me of the lyrics from "1985"..."and when did Motley Crue become classic rock?"

A few years back I auditioned for a "classic rock" band. It was not a good fit. I was a teenager in the late 1960's and early 1970's, but these guys were about 10 years older than me. Their concept of "classic rock" ended with Buddy Holly. They hated the Beatles, the Stones, and all things British. They especially hated Motown...I suspect it was somewhat race-related.

It just goes to show that others' concept of "classic rock" may be different than yours!
 
#31
jive1 said:
Classic Rock isn't dead, it just goes to bed at a more reasonable hour.
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brother, truer words have never been spoken on Talkbass. Bravo. I think I'm going to make that my new sig


To answer the OP, I think it depends. If you are a band, you have to be authentic. Have a band that grew up in the era of the music you are covering. Nothing is worse than a bunch of 20 to 30 year olds covering Grand funk or the beatles.

Know where your audience is. we have found a club that is a huge hang out for the 50 and up crowd, so of course, they love us there. They dance for everything, even ZZtop and Bad company. the one thing that clears the floor is Santana, but hey, you adjust your set list.

Be true to your genre. Don't be throwing out songs from the 80's or 90's just because you think there is somebody out there that will like them. People who love classic rock don't want to hear that crap.
 
#32
I don't think it's dead just because everyone in my area seems to want to play it.
The most people I ever saw dance while I was in my last band was to Miss You by the stones. We literally jammed that song probably 12 minutes and could have gone longer.....
But that was 5 years ago.
Now I want to play other stuff,mainly original and everyone still wants to play classic rock............
 
#33
tuBass said:
Don't be throwing out songs from the 80's or 90's just because you think there is somebody out there that will like them. People who love classic rock don't want to hear that crap.
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Not in my experience. I know plenty of perople in their late fourties who love classic rock from the late 60s through to the early 80's, but still also dig late 80s pop-rock (INXS, etc), grunge, all the way up to Coldplay etc.
 
#34
I think when the generation that was teenage in the '70s stops going out at night, that's when your band will have to play something else.

Until then I suppose we'll have dozens of bands in every town playing ******* freebird. :/
 
#35
My band There and Back Again is all about classic rock. The oldest one in our band is 21. We are so into classic rock that we write originals based on blues and progressive rock. We sound like a mixture of Rush and Led Zeppelin although we also listen to a lot of others stuff like Cream, Procol Harum, Glass Harp, The Who, Beatles, CSN, and the list goes on and on....

so no, classic rock is not "dead", its just been forgotten about. Its a real problem when idiots on twitter are wondering who Paul McCartney is. Lets remind them.
 
#36
I don't think classic rock is dead, but the window of what's acceptable is getting smaller.

First, ask yourself who is going to clubs to dance nowadays. Unless you've found a "boomer bar", I think it's mostly the 20- and 30-somethings who aren't yet mired in the work/house/baby trap. (And that's somewhat regional, of course.) Then, ask yourself what did those folks grow up listening to? Most folks really dig the songs that were popular during their high school and college days. For the younger set, that's a lot of stuff that boomers usually won't listen to, BUT it also includes their parents' favorite classic rock, too. Not all classic rock, just the "good" stuff they heard at home, which is likely to be the generally recognized popular rock classics. And then new country is hot in a lot of places - here in the Midwest, of course, but I've heard it's also pretty popular in parts of NYC and other large east coast cities.

I don't know who said that the fastest way to clear a dance floor is to play Skynyrd, ZZ Top, Bad Company and the like, but around here that's wrong, wrong, wrong. Those bands' classics are most often the thing that gets people up to dance - they're good, strong songs, and most everybody around here knows and likes them. Remember, most people won't dance to stuff they don't know, so the familiar up-tempo strong-snare tunes are my dance floor-filling friends.

But yeah, blues - one or two per night, max. Sad but true (and not the Metallica version ;-)
 
#38
lavaxtris said:
another thing,

pot has been illegal for quite some time. I'm sure that has something to do with it.
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yeah, you can only listen to brown eyed girl so many times without being high:hiding:.

i think people are just sick of hearing thsese songs for the last 40 years. as an art form classic rock is not dead, as your typical mainstream weekend warrior gig, yes it is and has been for a long time.

there are countless new and (new-ish) original bands that are doing what bands from the 60s-80s did, and in many cases doing it better, but it's just not crammed down people's throats. when was the last time you heard a song longer than 4 minutes on mainstream radio?
 
#40
Being in a mostly original band (some covers in the set) in the NW CT area I have noticed that people have stopped listening to the music and are more concerned with themselves being the center of attraction and the not the scene itself if that makes any sense (the Jersey Shore Syndrome). I mean it takes a lot of concentration to dig a jam you need to invest your attention on something other than your self and I think our society, particularly the night life society is overwrought with ego. Instead of having a good time and a musical experience people want to have their own reality show with a band sometimes playing a soundtrack song. Its too bad because music can inspire-
 

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