Cover Band Song List - Need Input

[hrodbert696]

Most musicians hate doing common, well known songs that "everyone does". I've found most bar patrons want to hear the hits, all the hits, and nothing but the hits. Songs they know and can sing along to, or immediately recognize.

YMMV.

+1. It's really important to ask what the goals of the band are. Playing crowd-pleasers is important if you want to play paying gigs. At the same time, if you're not playing to pay your bills, keeping the band happy may also be a priority, and you may need to balance the band members' fatigue with Summer of 69 with its popularity with a crowd. I'm the one in my current pop/rock cover band pushing to have 5% of the set list be lesser-known tunes that we just happen to LIKE playing. But I DO want paying gigs, so I don't want that to be more than 5%.

 

[RyanHutchison9]

+1. It's really important to ask what the goals of the band are. Playing crowd-pleasers is important if you want to play paying gigs. At the same time, if you're not playing to pay your bills, keeping the band happy may also be a priority, and you may need to balance the band members' fatigue with Summer of 69 with its popularity with a crowd. I'm the one in my current pop/rock cover band pushing to have 5% of the set list be lesser-known tunes that we just happen to LIKE playing. But I DO want paying gigs, so I don't want that to be more than 5%.

Haha that's exactly what we were talking about today, the cover band for us is just about getting some exposure and experience while we write original stuff so it's even more difficult as paying gigs are definitely appreciated.

 

[Bigmuffdiver]

Rockin' in the free world!

 

[morgansterne]

I thought my band were the only people playing ballroom blitz! we also do "fox on the run" which goes over really well.
somebody suggested mixing sweet home alabama with kid rock's all summer long which is exactly what we do.(definitely player fatigue on that one, we're really sick of it) don't put in werewolves of london -- clears the dance floor like nobody's business unless it's halloween.
we shy away from really obvious beaten-to-death tunes, for instance we play bob seeger's "rock and roll never forgets" instead of "old time rock and roll."

 

[Brelic]

If you have to do hits, in my experience there are two rules we've followed:

1. Be the only band that plays a certain song.
2. Be the best band at covering a certain song.

That's served us well. Some hits we practiced just didn't sound all that great and we *knew* other bands who played amazing versions of them. So we dropped those. Others we played them the best, and had many people tell us that.

And then in most cases, we find hits that no one in the area plays - at one point we did wicked hard rock version of Usher's DJ Got Us Falling In Love Again. People went bonkers for that song when we played it, and word of mouth got around that "these guys do an AWESOME cover of Usher!!"

 

[Spent]

We play many of the songs of your list, and they are great choices. We do a "warm" up set, American girl, summer of 69, etc. that doesn't include too many dance songs. The places we play generally take a while to get into the party mood. Our second set is where it really kicks in. We almost always start with jump around (house of pain). This gets everybody on the dance floor. We segue the next few songs to keep the dance floor full, we generally do 15 - 20 minutes of steady music. Works every time. We also try to do a few current hits. It seems that today's music is so simplistic that we can easily learn (and dump) them on a regular basis. This has been a winning formula for us for the last few years, we're booked through November and have to turn down offers. There are better bands, but none in our area willing to play what we do. We may all be musicians, but we're being paid to entertain. I'm also part of an original project, so the creativity has not been squashed.

 

[EastCoastThump]

If you have to do hits, in my experience there are two rules we've followed:

1. Be the only band that plays a certain song.
2. Be the best band at covering a certain song.

...
And then in most cases, we find hits that no one in the area plays - at one point we did wicked hard rock version of Usher's DJ Got Us Falling In Love Again. People went bonkers for that song when we played it, and word of mouth got around that "these guys do an AWESOME cover of Usher!!"

The lesson here: the value in being the only band playing huge recent hits that people want to hear. Being the only cover band in your market that plays obscure deep cuts from Zappa and Capt. Beefheart probably won't fill your calendar during wedding and event season.

 

[buldog5151bass]

That's why I try to find the "number twos" - songs still well known but not quite as tired.

 

[Thing1]

I think both of your "party" song lists are on point, recognize nearly all of those and they are awesome and super fun to play!

 

[Moley13]

If you have to do hits, in my experience there are two rules we've followed:

1. Be the only band that plays a certain song.
2. Be the best band at covering a certain song.

This.

Also, one word of advice: DON'T give your list of tunes to a client and ask what they'd like to hear. While it might seem like that will result in the happiest client, it really doesn't, mostly because "civilians" don't know how to put together a great setlist. It's got to have balance, tunes for different demographics, real "get up and dance" tunes to open (and pick up the mood when the energy starts to wane), tunes to keep the BAND happy, etc...

It's good to be able to say "here are some of the tunes we play (keep it concise) for these specific settings. If it's a wedding, ask them if there are one or two (they'll probably pick three) tunes they really want to hear (NOT from your list, just any songs), and decided if you can learn them or not. IMO, this keeps the client really happy (they feel special that you learned those tunes for them, even if you were already playing them!), and they have a great night because the rest of the setlist was put together by somebody who knows what they're doing!

Re: your party list. Looks like you're on the heavier/rockier side as a band in general, so this may not be a problem, but it does seem "LET'S ROCK" heavy, and could possibly have a few more dance/pop/disco (yup. disco. yum.) numbers. You'd be surprised how many people secretly love a great dance number (particularly after a few beers), and even just how many people might hate the tune but love the feeling of the groove that those tunes have when played live. Oh, and when I say dance/pop/disco, don't be afraid of hip hop either. Some black eyed peas or nelly goes a long way, particularly with the young folk!

Finally, if you hear a super cheesy, ridiculously simple lame new pop song, LEARN IT. Come on, it'll take you like 3 minutes, and people go NUTS for it! E.g., One Direction, Carly Rae Jepson, whoever wrote "Blurred Lines"...

Have fun!

 

[cronker]

Agreed with just about everything noted here.
We also go for the "number 2's" quite often. It's great to see the audience reaction when they say "oh, wow, I haven't heard this for ever! But I love it!!"
Most of your list is standard bar hits, and will definitely go over well.
Be careful of "Thriller" because it will be painfully obvious if you don't do it well.
That's the problem with songs people know so inherently. They know how it is supposed to sound and will dump on you if you massacre it.

We try to find songs that people know, but haven't been played to death by crap cover bands. Or, if we have a female singer, we'll change it up with songs by male singers (or vice versa). Keep em guessing!
Your band, even if it's a party band, needs a point of difference from everyone else out there. Otherwise, there really is no reason a bar should employ you.

Our method is:
set one: moderately paced tunes, some hits, get people in the mood. They are still having their first few beverages and want to chat and get into the night
Set two: ramp it up with popular tracks and inject some very dancey, funky stuff. Get them on the dance floor and drinking some more
Set three: pull out the big guns, really go to town with singalongs and anthems, and good old rocknroll.
Encore: two (at most) songs that kill, but the ending needs to be memorable. Lighters in the air, or everyone singing, and some happy jams or throw outs.

Things we always do:
Always thank the crowd for coming out.
Always thank the bar staff and venue.
Always be humble and gracious after the gig when the drunk guy tells you how great you are.
End leaving the punters wanting more. Don't keep playing because they are into it. A last song is a last song.

Things we never do:
Play for longer than the venue asks us to. In our town, there are residential noise restrictions and the venue can get into trouble if we go over the finish time.
Play requests that we don't know.
Allow random people onto our stage to sit in. We are professional, this is a show. We know what we are going to present.
Show up late, be drunk, get annoyed when sound goes wrong, get pissed off with the crowd if they aren't into it....list is endless.


Hope this helps!
cronks

 

[RyanHutchison9]

Alot of things to think about, thanks for the suggestions everyone!

 

[pklima]

"Creep" by Radiohead is a party song? "Mr. Jones" by Counting Crows? Those are pretty depressing, aren't they? To me party songs would be the big hits by Pitbull, Rihanna, Daddy Yankee etc. Or if you want 90s songs, Spice Girls and La Bouche.

 

[blindrabbit]

I wish MY cover band would choose more songs like this. Our acoustic player is constantly bringing in crap nobody's heard of, our electric player's obsessed with country, our singer throws crappy pop at us, and our drummer is all over the place trying to find crowd-pleasers.

+1. These are some very nice lists you've put together here. I'll echo awilkie84 in bemoaning how I have to battle my coverbandmates in their quest to pull out yet another blues tune, a country tune, and/or an obscure 70s rock song. I desperately wish we could get into some more current tunes. Maybe I'll bring your lists to our next practice and see if I can convince them to pick a few songs up from them!

 

[lowfreq33]

lol you need to move away from the hits. Almost all of these songs have already been butchered to the core. If I would you I would keep some of the hits but diversify more to music that people don't hear constantly and get annoyed with when it is played over and over again on the radio. That is at least what I look for in a cover band.

I wholeheartedly agree. If you play all those hits you run the risk of your audience dancing, drinking, and having a good time in general. Next thing you know the bar will want to book your band every month, and if you don't watch it they'll try to pay you more money. You need to play obscure songs nobody's ever heard of, and keep those people sitting down staring into space in a listless stupor where they belong.


Sent from my iPad using TalkBass

 

[veebass]

Agreed with just about everything noted here.
We also go for the "number 2's" quite often. It's great to see the audience reaction when they say "oh, wow, I haven't heard this for ever! But I love it!!"
Most of your list is standard bar hits, and will definitely go over well.
Be careful of "Thriller" because it will be painfully obvious if you don't do it well.
That's the problem with songs people know so inherently. They know how it is supposed to sound and will dump on you if you massacre it.

We try to find songs that people know, but haven't been played to death by crap cover bands. Or, if we have a female singer, we'll change it up with songs by male singers (or vice versa). Keep em guessing!
Your band, even if it's a party band, needs a point of difference from everyone else out there. Otherwise, there really is no reason a bar should employ you.

Our method is:
set one: moderately paced tunes, some hits, get people in the mood. They are still having their first few beverages and want to chat and get into the night
Set two: ramp it up with popular tracks and inject some very dancey, funky stuff. Get them on the dance floor and drinking some more
Set three: pull out the big guns, really go to town with singalongs and anthems, and good old rocknroll.
Encore: two (at most) songs that kill, but the ending needs to be memorable. Lighters in the air, or everyone singing, and some happy jams or throw outs.

Things we always do:
Always thank the crowd for coming out.
Always thank the bar staff and venue.
Always be humble and gracious after the gig when the drunk guy tells you how great you are.
End leaving the punters wanting more. Don't keep playing because they are into it. A last song is a last song.

Things we never do:
Play for longer than the venue asks us to. In our town, there are residential noise restrictions and the venue can get into trouble if we go over the finish time.
Play requests that we don't know.
Allow random people onto our stage to sit in. We are professional, this is a show. We know what we are going to present.
Show up late, be drunk, get annoyed when sound goes wrong, get pissed off with the crowd if they aren't into it....list is endless.


Hope this helps!
cronks

Been doing the covers thing for quite a while. This is all good advice.
We have a female singer and do lot's of "male" songs (as well as the obvious female ones).
Always remember why the venue owner is paying you.

 

[PortlandBass77]

I wholeheartedly agree. If you play all those hits you run the risk of your audience dancing, drinking, and having a good time in general. Next thing you know the bar will want to book your band every month, and if you don't watch it they'll try to pay you more money. You need to play obscure songs nobody's ever heard of, and keep those people sitting down staring into space in a listless stupor where they belong.


Sent from my iPad using TalkBass

Am I seriously the only one who get's tired of listening to the same song over and over? If I walk into a venue and music that I hear on the radio multiple times a day is being played I will just leave.

 

[lowfreq33]

Am I seriously the only one who get's tired of listening to the same song over and over? If I walk into a venue and music that I hear on the radio multiple times a day is being played I will just leave.

Yeah, but that's you, and you're a musician. I get tired of playing the same songs all the time too, but we're not the target audience. Most people that go out to hear cover bands just want to hear songs they're familiar with and can sing along to.

A few years ago I was putting a new band together, and I picked an awesome song list full of deep album cuts and songs I'd never heard other bands do. I left off all the cliche, overdone covers we're all sick of doing. No Sweet Home Alabama, no Friends In Low Places, no Brown Eyed Girl. And it went down like a lead balloon. Everywhere we played all we got were requests for all the songs we intentionally left out. I was floored. I couldn't believe 19 year old college chicks wanted to hear freaking Mustang Sally. But they do.

Most people who aren't musicians don't really have a deep appreciation for music. Music is the soundtrack for their party, and they want a familiar soundtrack. There's a Pavlovian response at work here. Certain songs trigger dancing and drinking. Usually those songs are about partying. Sometimes they're about how awesome some girl is, because every (drunk) woman believes those songs are about them. If you really want to know what songs will go over well at a bar, go to a karaoke night at a college bar. The songs they pick to sing are the songs they want to hear.

And look, if you just want to play music for your own enjoyment, and you aren't trying to make money or be popular, play whatever you want. The musicians and true music lovers in the audience will be really happy. There just won't be a whole lot of them.

 

[SteveHeissner]

Your set lists look great. Bars generally don't tell the band what songs to play. What's important is whether your set list brings in lots of customers and keeps the dance floor full and the bar pouring drinks all night. The bar just wants to make money. Whether we think so or not, cover bands are all about selling food and alcohol for the venue.

 

[Dana R Gregory]

You have an excellent playlist. How about some Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath with Ozzie Osborne, Cream, ZZ Top and Grand Funk. If you want to get a little more modern you could try some Ramones, Tool, Cure, Def Leppard and Sex Pistols.