Which song was your ‘showpiece’?

KDS

I had someone say to me 'play something I know'....... I kid you not

fastonebaz

In the acdc tribute band it was Let the be Rock.

In the pink tribute band it was Dont let me get me, where I wrote a splendid guitar solo complete with bit finale one handed fancy descending run to crescendo close. Super fun. 

FarleyUK

For me, it was Whole Lotta Rosie and Sweet Child o'Mine, back to back.

Christ my wrist hurt after those two.

welshboyo

Depending on the night/set it was either Brick in the Wall Pt2 or Who's Crying Now by Journey.

Brick used to start with me doing some noodling stuff over a D drone thing that I had set up on the Helix where the singer would introduce the band etc with just the drone going - and then introduced me last, I gave it welly for a couple of bars with hints of the melody of Brick and then the singer would come in with that Dm7 riff thing - real cheese!! but worked well with the lights and dry ice stuff we used on the bigger gigs.

Who's Crying Now I loved stretching out over as I got to invade everyone's ears with my complete repertoire of 80's cliches!!

bloodandtears

In the Metallica tribute it was Fade To Black... epic tune and solo.

In the AC/DC trib it was Thunderstruck no doubt, that intro!!!

As a band though, in the metallica trib we played the Justice Medley which was pure bliss and guaranteed a semi amongst the band every time. Pure self-indulgence... only the purists in the audience would "get it" though.

ESBlonde

In a big soul band we always ended with our version of long train running, the keyboard player said he would leave if we ever skipped it - it always went down a storm.
At those testing moments when someone discovers you play guitar and thrusts one in your hands I play 50 ways to leave your lover. 

Neill

There are only two songs I know that are guaranteed to make people dance, one is Brown Sugar the other is Spirit in the Sky.  Must be a good 20 years ago I emailed Norman Greenbaum to find out how he got that distinctive guitar sound so I could really nail the riff, and to my amazement he replied and told me.  Starting that song was always a thrill and the outro gives you quite a bit of scope to do a few pyrotechnics as well.  And if people are dancing it don't really matter how well you play...  

Danny1969

BahHumbug said:

We don’t have tooo many songs with prominent solos, but the ‘showpieces’ are Sultans of Swing and Another Brick in the Wall part 2.

Although if I’m doing folk it’s Nic Jones’ Canadee-I-O.

I enjoyed Sultans, I sang it as well and it took me a while to learn all the verses, to be fair I never did quite learn them. For the last verse I used to mumble " There's a crowd of young boys fooling around in the corner, drunk and dressed baggy and some lyrics I never bothered to really learn") and no one noticed or said anything. The little guitar fills in that song are genius, as are the solo's. 
We do Happiest days of our lifes then go into Brick P2, like the album. Regular crowd are used to it but there's been some funny moments in new venues then our bass player goes full on Roger Waters "Stand still laddie !"

Caffeine_Vampire

Neill said:

There are only two songs I know that are guaranteed to make people dance, one is Brown Sugar the other is Spirit in the Sky.  Must be a good 20 years ago I emailed Norman Greenbaum to find out how he got that distinctive guitar sound so I could really nail the riff, and to my amazement he replied and told me.  Starting that song was always a thrill and the outro gives you quite a bit of scope to do a few pyrotechnics as well.  And if people are dancing it don't really matter how well you play...  

And..?

EricTheWeary

Caffeine_Vampire said:

Neill said:

There are only two songs I know that are guaranteed to make people dance, one is Brown Sugar the other is Spirit in the Sky.  Must be a good 20 years ago I emailed Norman Greenbaum to find out how he got that distinctive guitar sound so I could really nail the riff, and to my amazement he replied and told me.  Starting that song was always a thrill and the outro gives you quite a bit of scope to do a few pyrotechnics as well.  And if people are dancing it don't really matter how well you play...  

And..?

Yes @Neill that's half a story! 

axisus

I'm in awe of you guys! I'm just a sh*te bedroom guitarist, can't play anything of note .....

JayGee

For some reason everybody else in my last band used to think that “Another Brick...” was a standout moment for me (this always surprised me as what I played had very little in common with the Gilmour original, and as far as I was concerned I was clinging on by my fingernails just about surviving by a hairs breadth) but the one I really, really, really enjoyed was “Whole Lot of Love...” where I somehow ended up faking the theremin part using a second delay pedal sitting on top of the amp set up to go into oscillation, feedback from the guitar, and winding the delay time backwards and forward to change the pitch - very silly but surprisingly effective, lots of fun, and people seemed to like it...  

Neill

EricTheWeary said:

Caffeine_Vampire said:

Neill said:

There are only two songs I know that are guaranteed to make people dance, one is Brown Sugar the other is Spirit in the Sky.  Must be a good 20 years ago I emailed Norman Greenbaum to find out how he got that distinctive guitar sound so I could really nail the riff, and to my amazement he replied and told me.  Starting that song was always a thrill and the outro gives you quite a bit of scope to do a few pyrotechnics as well.  And if people are dancing it don't really matter how well you play...  

And..?

Yes @Neill that's half a story! 

As I say, this was in the early days of the internet - when it was all dial up and pretty much just a novelty.  So back then if you played covers it was the devil of a job to figure out how certain songs were played, what guitar was used etc, and lyrics was often a lot of guess work...  Even guitar magazines weren't a lot of help and they were often wrong. 

I remember a guy telling me how I seemed to have got the riff to "Nutbush City Limits" spot on, I said most folk play it wrong 'cos they don't realise it's in open G, like Brown Sugar and Honky Tonk Women, but I only knew because I had read an interview with Ike Turner in a music magazine where someone asked him about the rumour that Marc Bolan had played the famous intro...  He laughed of course, it is/was nonsense but he did let on how it should be played.  We used to do a quiet section where we did Joni Mitchell's "Little Green" and it took me ages to figure out that is played in open G as well.   

The famous groundbreaking solo in the old Carpenters hit "Goodbye to Love" was another one. I never felt as though I quite got it, and it was only recently I discovered that the sadly departed Tony Peluso only played in open F, which apparently makes it a lot easier (I haven't tried it..).  Of course open F is the same as open G so maybe I should have just tuned the guitar to  F and capo'd it. 

Anyhow,  fast forward to the present day and with Youtube there's hardly any secrets any more, and TBH I think it's a shame.  I miss those days when even if you weren't a great guitar player, and I'm not, you could still have a few tricks up your sleeve that others didn't have just by doing some research.

As far as "SITS" goes I didn't think that was a secret anymore.  I thought it was fairly well known that Norman used a Telecaster with a custom built unique fuzz box - analogue obviously, and actually part of the guitar - to get the distinctive sound.  What isn't widely known is that the Tele was played on the neck pickup.  I had a cheap Tele at the time and as soon as I switched it onto the neck pickup I could see the way forward.  IIRC Norman did give me a few tips to replicate the way the fuzz box worked, and I wished I had hung on top a copy of the email but it's long lost.  

Chris_J

Not sure about showpiece, but, our version of 'Bring 'Em All In' by Mike Scott always gets a great reaction.

A steady kick all the way through to provide an almost trance like pulse, the guitars build, harmonies, big washy cymbals.

We're an acoustic Americana style band with forays into folk/folk-rock

springhead

BahHumbug said:

Although if I’m doing folk it’s Nic Jones’ Canadee-I-O.

Yes that's a wonderful song, superb playing from him.  Would love to have the ability to play that.

Gassage

Smelly Cat- Pheobe Buffy

not_the_dj

Chris_J said:

Not sure about showpiece, but, our version of 'Bring 'Em All In' by Mike Scott always gets a great reaction.

A steady kick all the way through to provide an almost trance like pulse, the guitars build, harmonies, big washy cymbals.

We're an acoustic Americana style band with forays into folk/folk-rock

Would love to hear that. Not sure I’ve ever seen anyone covering his solo stuff. Great tune. 

Logie

Not sure I'd say showpiece but Hotel California got me out of the shit once. 

While I was working in Cyprus I stood in for a 3 piece band who's guitarist had gone back to the UK. They had a Xmas gig they really wanted to honour so persuaded me to stand in.

I'd never played in front of people before and when we were setting up I noticed there were quite a lot of people ....300 to be exact!

 I got through the first song and then just before the next song I looked out, saw all these people sat down watching me all suited and booted and I just froze.
Couldn't play a note for the next few songs and in a 3 piece there's nowhere to hide so it was really turning sour. 
It felt like I was standing in a pool of my own sweat and I was getting waves of nausea travelling up and down my body. Totally miserable experience.

Anyhoo, the rest of the band launched into Hotel California with me still glued to the spot but when it got to the solo I finally kicked in. I'd learnt it as best I could note perfect and muscle memory got me through. The audience gave a massive ( probably ironic ) cheer and from then on I was fine. It didn't exactly save the gig but we got paid.

I was having a piss afterward and a bloke in the next urinal turned round to me with a proper withering look and said " you were fucking shit mate " and walked off

viz

Anything you can really dig into the solo - a few spring to mind that really get the audience going:

Rebel Yell
Bohemian Rhapsody
Ordinary World
Where’s Your Head At
Jump

Plus I love playing:
Juice / For the Love of God
Satch Boogie

Trude

All the songs people say are my biggest numbers are for the vocals, not guitar:

Let's Dance (Bowie)
Dancing in the Dark

Come on Eileen (yeah, we're a guilty pleasures cover band. What of it?)

But since I found I had a weirdly strong falsetto, all the above have been eclipsed by my rendition of Tragedy by the Bee Gees. The best version of that was a May 4th Star Wars themed gig when I was dressed as Yoda, and I was able to seamlessly combine my best Yoda voice and extensive quote repertoire with Barry Gibb's signature vocal stylings.