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Freebird, and other cliche covers

#41
electracoyote said:
But I would submit that 1) Most cover bands couldn't do a good job with those songs if challenged to play them start to finish, and 2) If a cover band actually rehearsed those songs to the point of nailing them live, as-recorded, most cover band audiences would lose their minds.
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Absolutely! Used to cover Smoke on the Water in my last band and we killed it every time. The audience loved it! It's a great tune, and you cannot phone it in. If you don't embrace it, love it, and rock it, why should your audience?

When you play these songs, play it like you mean it. :bassist:
 
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#44
Imagine walking into a restaurant. You sit at a table and look at the menu. When you make your order they tell you that they don't have it. Or better yet, they tell you that you can't have it.

That's how the audience feels when you don't take requests.

Learn to play the cliche tunes. Make the crowd happy.

Then ask management for a raise.
 
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#46
I agree on Freebird being a tough cover, done right. I agree on it being a work that has a few different moving parts that all need to be kept track of. I think it's well done and I admire the craftsmanship very much.
Having said that, it fills one of my dislike categories in spades; a (very) long, (I feel) self indulgent guitar solo. CCR "Suzy Q" and "Grapevine" fall in there too just to name a couple more. Nothing against the tunes or the bands, just not my cup of tea. The long solo thing to me is like when you have a bunch of people over and when everyone starts heading out at the end of the evening except one or two people are etiquette blind to the fact the party ended. - I seriously hope I haven't offended anyone....
 
#49
Joe Nerve said:
I had a Deep Purple tribute that lasted one gig about 2 years ago. We did Smoke On The Water, as recorded. It was one of the most awesome covers I've ever done. That song is fun to play, and somewhat challenging, too.
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In A Godda Dovia, Smoke on the Water, Louie Louie, Sympathy for the Devil - need I go on?

Albeit this was a long, long time ago when bassists first came crawling out of the primordial soup...
 
#51
electracoyote said:
Iron Man
Smoke On The Water
Stairway to Heaven

There is a whole list of "cliche" rock songs that most cover bands avoid because of the stigma (a symptom of caring too much about what the two snooty musicians will think rather than what the other 99.9% of the people in the room a.k.a. "the audience" will think). But I would submit that 1) Most cover bands couldn't do a good job with those songs if challenged to play them start to finish, and 2) If a cover band actually rehearsed those songs to the point of nailing them live, as-recorded, most cover band audiences would lose their minds.

I witnessed a cover band try to shrug off shouts for "Freebird," and then they gave in and did the intro (with the slide melody). Turns out they knew it like the backs of their hands, the whole live version, with two guitars trading licks at the end and the whole nine yards. The crowd ate it up with a fork and spoon.
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We did Smoke on the water back in my band in high school. Deep purple was the thing. We also did Highway Star and a couple of others that I can't recall (brain fart). I've heard Smoke on the water done many times by bands over the years (I'm old). We also did Iron Man, but never played it out.
 
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#53
Engle said:
My band does Play that Funky Music and people always love it. I don't get why many bassists here hate that song.
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Hell, I love that song. It's challenging at the start and it gets fun. My band did that one and got everyone grooving.

Another we did was the Doobies' "Listen To The Music". Everyone sang along. It's one of those, like "Funky Music", where it's a chestnut, but people haven't heard it live for a long time, then they get surprised and let the nostalgia carry them away. Nostalgia, as Don Draper said, is pretty powerful, and can turn the most stone-hearted into a big ol' pussycat.
 
#55
Fumble Fingers said:
Agree with the OP on Freebird. It takes a good amount of effort to pull that one off correctly.

Bad Choices: Anything from Nickleback is pretty much right down the pooper nowadays.
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Nickleback playing Nickleback is pretty much right down the pooper.
I can't picture anyone playing something that "new" or "edgy" in a cover band.
 
#58
In answer to OP’s question regards Freebird becoming a cliche, the answer is mostly geographical. I was in a serious traditional blues band and we’d get booked into pool halls and bars and such and invariably as we were setting up there would always be a couple young Johnny Rebs easing up to the stage and the question was always the same, “what kinda skin-nerd you got for us tonight?”, then as soon as the first note was struck for sound check until we’d start tearing down later, every few minutes someone would call out, “Freebird! Yeahhhhh!!”. It may have become trite simply from the number of times it’s asked for in the joints down here. We never did learn Freebird but we did add faithful renditions of Simple Man, The Ballad of Curtis Loew and Mississippi Kid and would usually close the night with Whipping Post and One Way Out The BL’s mission was to bring them to the alter of the blues (his words), if that meant showing them the roots of the blues in their beloved sudden rock, so be it.
Whenever my brother puts together a band for a private or frat party, a Ska version of Sweet Home Alabama, covers of Barefoot Jerry, the CDB, Grinderswitch, White Witch and many other bands from the southern rock genre are subject to be on the setlist, and he came up in the height of the SR rise from regional thing to the near national hysteria that generated such cliches as Molly Hatchet. Needless to say he considers himself a serious musician so while he grew up loving the genre, he’s by it in general like I am by Stairway To Heaven, it was great the first 987,653,464,925,301 times i heard it; these days, not so much. I won’t quit a band that starts wanting to do the sudden rock thing when it started as country, or has members who think southern rock has any roots at all in country music, but i will start looking the harder they push it. I’m old enough to remember being ragged by my country loving friends for listening to “that hippie poopie” so the whole SR has roots in country is a marketing gimmick that has been embraced by the generations too young to have experienced having to fight your way out of a bar for playing a Charlie Daniels tune on the jukebox.
 
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#59
Thumpin6string said:
We did Smoke on the water back in my band in high school. Deep purple was the thing. We also did Highway Star and a couple of others that I can't recall (brain fart). I've heard Smoke on the water done many times by bands over the years (I'm old). We also did Iron Man, but never played it out.
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Back in the day when those songs were still fresh and in heavy rotation on turntables and FM radio, they were sure-fire crowd-pleasers.

The songs are still great, have aged incredibly well, and an icon is still an icon, sometimes despite also being cliche. The only thing that really changed over the years is most cover band musicians (sadly, even those our age) have lost sight of what continues to be popular entertainment to the average cover band party crowd. And most cover band musicians are too busy worrying about what a couple of snooty over-opinionated musicians think at the expense of the vastly wider general audience.

Just because some dork hung a sign in the music store that says "NO SMOKE ON THE WATER," or any of the other titles discussed on this thread, that shouldn't constitute a stain on your soul if you decide to take that standard rock cliche seriously, nail it to the wall live, and reap the rewards.
 
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