I did the country band too for a short while. All you say is true.
However, it really didn't matter how many new songs we added, too much of the bass was all the same from song to song.
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The Real Reason Why Bands Play the Same Old Tired Covers
- Thread starter jive1
- Start date
However, it really didn't matter how many new songs we added, too much of the bass was all the same from song to song.
Those are some great songs and bands I have been in have played them. I did, however, find resistance with Lady, You Bring Me Up, which is a great dance tune! SMH. Some folks just don't get it.
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s0c9
Supporting Member
I guess it depends on the songs you play.. for current Top-40 we play.. I mostly disagree.. they can be VERY different from song to song. Not to say that some aren't similar tho'..
However, for classic country.. absolutely agree!! One could fall asleep with the standard waltz in G
I do agree to a point that it is easier to just do the same old stuff. I also agree that many people want to hear the same old stuff. I quit playing the same old stuff a few years ago. Didn't do it for me. I was on auto pilot, and the money wasn't good enough.
Honestly, at this point in my life, I'd rather play some "deep tracks" and other self indulgent music at a coffee shop or some other non bar/club/need to get people drunk venue and be paid nothing. A good singer or two, an acoustic guitar, a bass, maybe some percussion/small kit, and a repertoire of James Taylor, America, CSN, Chicago, Hall & Oates, Steely Dan, etc.
Start at 7 or so and play for a couple three hours. Maybe get a free coffee or something along the way. I may even know some people who would be into this.
Honestly, at this point in my life, I'd rather play some "deep tracks" and other self indulgent music at a coffee shop or some other non bar/club/need to get people drunk venue and be paid nothing. A good singer or two, an acoustic guitar, a bass, maybe some percussion/small kit, and a repertoire of James Taylor, America, CSN, Chicago, Hall & Oates, Steely Dan, etc.
Start at 7 or so and play for a couple three hours. Maybe get a free coffee or something along the way. I may even know some people who would be into this.
+1
"What song is it you wanna hear?".....
Not your band butchering a Skynyrd tune!
My band doesn't butcher any of the songs we play. We practice hard, and we are very self-critical. If a song isn't passing muster, we would drop it. The two Skynyrd songs we play, "Freebird," and "I know a little," are songs we're proud of. Freebird is very difficult to play correctly. Even the bass line has a lot going on, and for everyone to be on the same page for all 9 1/2 minutes takes a bit of work, at least if you do the correct changes. I Know a Little is even more difficult, and the fact that I pull of that Billy Powell piano solo is a source of immense pride, as I had to work very hard to get it.
I think some of you get the idea I think I'm some kind of rock star, or heading for the big time or some such thing, and that just couldn't be further from the truth. I don't claim to know it all about anything, certainly not what it takes to be successful. But we all do this for our own reasons.
My reason for playing in this particular band is simple. My wife likes me to. I could've been stuck with nothing but hair metal standards; Talk Dirty to Me, Girls Girls Girls, I Remember You, Livin' on a Prayer, on and on, and I got lucky enough to get a kid on guitar who likes more of my sixties and seventies favorites.
We're not at the top of our market, nor are we in the bottom. We're not in YOUR market, because you're not in OUR market. The posts I have made on this thread make perfect sense in that context, and at no time did I claim they apply to anyone else.
And I am told night after night that we pull songs people are not hearing so much, and when I do go out, there are songs I hear that I consider standards, such as
- All Right Now
- Purple Haze
- Gimme Three Steps
- Sweet Home/Werewolves/Kid Rock mashup (everybody plays that one)
- Man in a Box
- Don't Stop Believin'
- Bad Girlfriend, (which, unfortunately, we play as well)
And the other thing is, of the songs I am singing lead on, I absolutely LOVE 100% of them, and our audience does, too. THAT is a formula for success at this level. I enjoy performing these songs, and I am proud to do so. Maybe that's a big joke to some people, but most of the people who throw the little snide remarks are also people who NEVER post videos, so I assume it's just some projection over things they are doing they are NOT proud of.
If you were me, you wouldn't be proud to be me; in fact, you'd be embarrassed.
Lucky for me, I'm me, and you're not.
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
Trust me Mellow, no one thinks you are a rock star, and/or heading for the big time. Comments like that are what led to some of the earlier quotes directed at you.
OK, I know no one thinks I am a rock star, and/or heading for the big time.
My point was that they may think I think that, and I don't.
Now have we gotten on the same page? There are no comments that deserved any of the earlier quotes; only misunderstood comments.
To be clear, no one needs to think that I think they are thinking I think I am a potential rock star, or headed for the big time.
And all my posts are simply me stating my own personal point of view.
But I'm afraid I can't trust you; you're a stranger on the internet. That would just be plain foolish.
Is it "lazy" musicians?.......I'm not sure...
You can go on YouTube and look at live performances by top stars doing their hit songs......and the amount of live performances by top stars out there that absolutely SUCK are numerous.
Off key, missed parts, chord changes, horrible vocals...the list goes on. Are they "lazy" ?
In a bar you are playing to a crowd that is inevitably going to get hammered many a night.
The band volume goes up in direct proportion to the amount of alcohol consumed by the patrons.
Do the patrons want really good music? I doubt it.
All they want is a rockin' beat played loud......did I say LOUD...........as in.......LOUD
every once in awhile they want a slow one so they can experience euphoria while herding the girlfriend around the floor with one (or both) hands on certain enticing parts of her body.
Loud music...and energetic...so they can mentally channel their alcohol-fueled primal instincts through it.
The bar band just plays and the bar-band musicians know where it's all heading most nights........
If it ain't broke don't fix it.....
You can go on YouTube and look at live performances by top stars doing their hit songs......and the amount of live performances by top stars out there that absolutely SUCK are numerous.
Off key, missed parts, chord changes, horrible vocals...the list goes on. Are they "lazy" ?
In a bar you are playing to a crowd that is inevitably going to get hammered many a night.
The band volume goes up in direct proportion to the amount of alcohol consumed by the patrons.
Do the patrons want really good music? I doubt it.
All they want is a rockin' beat played loud......did I say LOUD...........as in.......LOUD
every once in awhile they want a slow one so they can experience euphoria while herding the girlfriend around the floor with one (or both) hands on certain enticing parts of her body.
Loud music...and energetic...so they can mentally channel their alcohol-fueled primal instincts through it.
The bar band just plays and the bar-band musicians know where it's all heading most nights........
If it ain't broke don't fix it.....
There's some truth in that. Unless you know each person in the audience individually, you really don't know.
If a group of my old friends from high school who are now working professionals in their 40s got together for a night out to check out a cover band, what kind of tunes do you think we'd go nuts over? It sure won't be Journey or Poison. But, if the band played old school thrash metal like Anthrax or Megadeth, we'd pool our money together and give a tip you could make a car payment with while yelling at everyone in the bar that you are the best band EVER!. If I went to a show with the members of my pickup Blues band who are all Black and the band started playing hip-hop, they'd walk out. But, if you played Zeppelin they'd love you.
Sometimes you just gotta give things a try. Sometimes we overestimate or underestimate our audience. Sometimes our prejudices and biases come into play. Sometimes they are founded, sometimes they are not. But, there's nothing wrong with making a sincere effort and giving something a try.
Very valid point, and it's one of the things that will limit a band's repertoire.
On the other hand, singers are musicians too and sometimes the laziest of them all. Sure, singing takes some natural ability, but it doesn't end there. Practice and education should be required of vocalists as well. The pedagogy available for singing is much more mature than for electric bass, and you can improve your pitch and range through practice.
But, you can also transpose songs to have them better fit the singer too. It might be a little more work, but it can be done.
When we first started the cover band I'm currently in we had this grandiose idea that we would play all these obscure cover songs and people would just get it. Instead of doing "Rock & Roll" by Zeppelin, we did "Out on the Tiles". Instead of "I Saw Her Standing There" by the Beatles, it was "She Said, She Said". And while we were doing some cool tunes, we weren't playing enough recognizable songs that people could latch on to. At a certain point we decided we needed to add a few bar band "standards". We started playing "Brick House", "Play That Funky Music" and a couple other tunes along those lines and all of a sudden we had the girls up and dancing. So what we did was to look and see if there were other tunes along those lines that other bands weren't doing. We started covering "Fire" by The Ohio Players, "Superfly" by Curtis Mayfield, the Gladys Knight and the Pips version of "Grapevine" and a bunch more like that. Now those are the types of songs people come to see us for. The point being that audiences may have an idea what they want to hear but they don't know exactly what that is and for any band, that's a great opportunity to do something different. I think that's what the OP was alluding to.
Those are some great tunes. The Ohio Players and Curtis Mayfield had a bunch of hits in the 70s that have been revived again and again in the movies. I love Curtis Mayfield, and considering he has some fun tunes like 'Pusherman', 'Freddies Dead', 'Move on Up', 'People Get Ready', I wish more band would cover him. Ohio Players had a hit with 'Who'd She Coo' and even if people don't know that tune, they can't help but dance to it. But, they will know that tune when they catch your next show.
And great point with people not always knowing what song from a band they want to hear. I do occasional pickup acoustic and trio work where I do lots of requests. I get plenty of requests that are like 'Do you know any tunes from xxx?' I love those because I get to put my taste into the equation, and it usually it works. I like doing a standard and a secondary hit if I know more than one from that artist. For example, I did a pickup trio gig where a cute girl asked for some Gin Blossoms, so I did 'Hey Jealousy' for her and got the place moving and then jumped into 'Follow You Down' a hit tune that's a little less covered that she totally rocked out. Sometimes someone will make a request, and I'll counter with something else and they may wind up happier. For example, I had a guy ask for 'Purple Haze' and I told him, 'How about Voodoo Chile?', he totally lit up. I did the tune, including a guitar solo played behind my head and his group of friends just ate up the whole spiel and had them doing the 'I'm Not Worthy Bow'. I'm not sure that would have happened with Purple Haze.
Yeah, not a Hootie fan here either. I still like Wagon Wheel and I prefer the OCMS version as well. The harmony vox on that one are what keeps me interested in playing it.
That said, I do like the Prince version of Ohio Players' "Fire". Sublime.
Some of us play those songs because we like them and really groove to them
Here's some thought. One of the places my old band used to play had a DJ who played before us, during our break and after us. 100% of the music he played had literally the entire place on the dance floor. I told the BL that he should be taking notes and incorporating some of the songs being played. He blew me off. The majority of the time we played there was very little dancing. Club owner took notice. Didn't like it. For me, that would have been a great opportunity to 'know' what the folks liked. Some folks don't pay attention or don't give a you know what. I do my homework. When I first moved to the area, I went to check out all the top bands. Many of them sucked but they played the music folks wanted to hear. I saw what songs went over well and what didn't. Got together many times with different bands or musicians and tried to formulate songlists. Met resistance with many of those top songs. Why? "Oh, everybody plays those songs. We want to be different!" OooooKkkkkkk! What do you want to play? I'd get a songlist. I'd ask 'Ok, where are we gonna play this stuff?' The reply was, 'all the main spots. This stuff will go over well. They'll love it!' We'd get in once and never get called back. Those bands died quickly. It's great to push the bar but definitely have a plan and be the best band you can be.
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
Yep. As I said before, we have a list where people can make requests of what they want to hear. The country band gets Wagon Wheel every gig. The rock band often gets Sweet Home or Mustang Sally. Hate 'em, but... we're always expanding our play list, and we use this for possible suggestions.
