Covers which get the best crowd reaction?

Handsome_Chris

fastonebaz said:

I want to play Mean Man, Harder Faster and Fuck like a Beast by WASP but I just can't get the bookings. 

I think that W.A.S.P. can't get the booking either.

fastonebaz

Handsome_Chris said:

fastonebaz said:

I want to play Mean Man, Harder Faster and Fuck like a Beast by WASP but I just can't get the bookings. 

I think that W.A.S.P. can't get the booking either.

Blackie looks more and more like my late grandma every day  

Handsome_Chris

I've just had a dream about playing Mr Brightside wrong.   

Jonathangus

Handsome_Chris said:

I've just had a wrong dream about playing Mr Brightside.   

FTFY.

PolarityMan

CaseOfAce said:

Art vs. commerce innit? Same as it ever was. 

Sure you can populate a setlist full of Robben Ford, Alan Holdsworth and  Dream Theatre covers - turn up at the Dog and Duck ready to unleash you and your bandmates quite staggering technical prowess to a doubtless eager, salivating pub regular crowd...and marvel at the tumbleweed blowing across the beer sodden wooden (and empty) dancefloor at the end of the night whilst the landlord ponders why his takings are down that night.

If you want regular bookings on the UK pub rock, social club circuit that generally means playing Mustang, Brown Eyed Alabama with a side helping of Se*x on Brightside 69. And boy you'd better look like you're having fun doing it !! ;-)

(though I must give kudos to the band in a Brixham pub I once saw doing 10CC's Art for Art's sake - that was brilliant - and I'm not being insincere here).

I think the conversation went in slightly a different direction than I meant. I understand why people play songs that are popular and while thats not my bag I kinda get it.

My point is what sort of person rushes the dancefloor for "Road to Amarillo"?  

And the less said about "Hey Jude" the better.

In conclusion people are idiots.

Snags

PolarityMan said:

My point is what sort of person rushes the dancefloor for "Road to Amarillo"?  

And the less said about "Hey Jude" the better.

Those would be the kind of people who want to have a good time, and in their various levels of inebriation enjoy the physicality of dance combined with loudly joining in with the words to songs that are so familiar they're a common bond.

In some ways it's not a lot different to (one of) the purposes of e.g. congregational singing in a religious setting, if you strip away any of the explicitly religious/spiritual aspects. Comfort in the familiar, a sense of joining in community (or at least with mates), and all of the physiological/biological stuff from deep breathing, belting out words, and shaking your booty.

And it's an opportunity to lose yourself in something mindless and banal for a few minutes.

Essentially the same reasons and responses that people have for piling into the mosh pit, or headbanging into the bass bins or whatever.

Being a miserable fucker I tend to stand by the sound desk and just listen

In conclusion people are idiots.

Preach, brother, preach.

RocknRollDave

At present, I'd say Teenage Dirtbag and the ubiquitous Mr Brightside are the big floor-fillers for my band.

Of the rest of my set, it tends to vary from crowd to crowd, but Brown Eyed Girl usually gets a whoop of recognition at the start, Don't Look Back in Anger always gets a singalong and Twist and Shout gets the more mature demographic up and moving. 

We're putting Sweet Caroline in for the first time at the next gig, and I will be surprised if it doesn't go down very well.