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Freebird, and other cliche covers
- Thread starter Joe Nerve
- Start date
Yes all are well-worn standards that I've heard too many times & but apparently Party crowds haven't?...
I played a retirement party last weekend where Brown Eyed Girl & Wolly Bully had 3 generations having a blast on the dance floor.
As the OP said, Heck I'll play whatever folks want to hear, It's the entertainment business.. I never forget that..
To me at least the key to playing what is considered "played out" is to nail the vocals, add harmonies & dynamics that fit & you've created your own version of the song. Epics like Free bird I'll avoid, Too many moving parts!
Serious question: why is Sweet Home Alabama a hack classic where as Freebird is verboten? Is it the length? An old band of mine occasionally played parts of Freebird as a joke at practice. It was always fun.
Uptown Funk is headed that direction fast.
That band was a pretty self-indulgent Prog originals band. But we had a regular gig at a bar, so we'd always throw in an odd cover. Wondering Aloud by Tull, and we did Sheep by Floyd as well. (We did shorten considerably the spacey middle bit of Echoes - that would have really been pushing the boundaries!)
"Sweet Home Alabama" is an easy song to play poorly & if the audience is an indiscriminate bar crowd they are likely enjoying it as they can join in on the chorus and therefore be part of the action. Freebird played poorly is an exercise in monotony. Again, Drunks don't care.. I've always felt Skynyrd is a band to stay away from for cover acts unless they can nail the nuances of their music, There's a lot going on!
I'm only opposed to songs that don't "fit" the moment, like playing My Girl at a dance club.
My band does a pretty faithful Freebird cover and it's actually a lot of fun!
We do it... a la “Ire’ Freebird”
Listen to the Toyes reggae version and you’ll get the idea. Makes it danceable for the gals and the crowd loves it.
Listen to the Toyes reggae version and you’ll get the idea. Makes it danceable for the gals and the crowd loves it.
I submit that Seven Nation Army is my generation’s Smoke in the Water. Great for learning guitar/bass, but don’t do it live unless you can really pull it off.
Reggae cover covers a lot of ground. I used to love doing a reggae Crazy Train
I learned a bunch of Skynyrd on guitar back in the day. Freebird is fairly straight forward. The solo is long and requires synchronization, but they're easy patterns. Gimme Back My Bullets has pretty complex guitar parts.
My band does Play that Funky Music and people always love it. I don't get why many bassists here hate that song.
You do understand "Dreams I'll Never See" is "Dreams" by the Allman Brothers, set to a different tempo. Heck the album lists Allman as the writer and yet MH changed the title?
A lot of the standards are awful to do just because they're almost never played well. People completely half-ass their way through them.
My last classic rock cover band did Stairway to Heaven, kind of, and it went over huge. We did a rocked up version of Rollin' In the Deep by Adele in A. I switched instruments with one of the guitar players during the breakdown section of that, and at the end of the Adele song we went into the fast part of Stairway. Same chords so it flowed beautifully. I got to play the guitar solo. Audiences loved it.
I wanted that band to do Free Bird and Smoke on the Water. We either reproduced recorded versions note for note or did very good custom arrangements. We rehearsed a lot and quality control was pretty high. Everyone had full rights to stop a song in rehearsal and point out something that didn't sound right. For those two songs we would have faithfully done both live versions. We would have absolutely nailed them.
My last classic rock cover band did Stairway to Heaven, kind of, and it went over huge. We did a rocked up version of Rollin' In the Deep by Adele in A. I switched instruments with one of the guitar players during the breakdown section of that, and at the end of the Adele song we went into the fast part of Stairway. Same chords so it flowed beautifully. I got to play the guitar solo. Audiences loved it.
I wanted that band to do Free Bird and Smoke on the Water. We either reproduced recorded versions note for note or did very good custom arrangements. We rehearsed a lot and quality control was pretty high. Everyone had full rights to stop a song in rehearsal and point out something that didn't sound right. For those two songs we would have faithfully done both live versions. We would have absolutely nailed them.
The last few gigs we've had drunken audience members shouting out "Play Freebird," at times annoyingly so and non-stop. Last night during practice we worked up a version where we do start a normal verse, then count in a punk ska version to finish the verse and a chorus. Then end on 1.
Or maybe we should then go into a version of the Smiths "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore?"
Or maybe we should then go into a version of the Smiths "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore?"
Agreed. Never played it in a band, but I love listening to both Molly Hatchet's and the Allman's versions - two VERY different versions of the same song, and both VERY good. And the Allman's version is 3/4 time while Molly's is 4/4 - how many remakes actually mess with the time signature that much?
Back in my early cover band days, the song I hated playing the most was Chicago's "Color My World" I used to just stand there looking bored, hitting a single bass note every measure or two. Since then I've developed a greater respect for the song.
My crappy band does Louie Louie. I use the fuzz pedal to begin song playing alone and then throughout the song. I think it sounds great, but we're total amateurs. We are professionals in other things and only do this for fun. I we play out I hope we play it!
Only reason my current cover band started doing Brown Eyed Girl, and Play That Funky Music is because it got requested a bunch. (The song Play That Funky Music is about someone requesting Funky Music!) The truth is that these are cliched because the audience (and the dance floor) loves them.
There was a time when I would have said "House Of The Rising Sun" but not so much anymore. I guess I'm really showing my age now.
