Cover band setlists?

[Spike Li]

So Im guessing that at least a few of you here are currently, or have previously been in cover bands?

 

So anyway, Ive recently just joined a cover band on bass and we are sorting out setlists and things to learn. The other guys want to play it safe and just stick with all the classics (eg, Summer of 69 etc) but Im wondering if it would pay off to me more adventureous (ie, somewhat lesser known/newer songs and alternate covers)? I mean, theres nothing wrong with classics and I dont mind playing them, its just if every cover band in town is playing the same songs all the time, I dont see the point of doing that too

 

Thoughts?

[kayd_mon]

It all depends on the crowd, but in my area (South Florida) sometimes and amped-up top 40 song can be a crowd pleaser. Michael Jackson songs always go over well, and all the ladies in the bars seem to love Bon Jovi. Newish stuff like Foo Fighters, Black Keys, and Kings of Leon usually gets a decent response.

[Yer Blues]

Go to BSWTB. The most succesful cover bands are playing top 40 stuff like Bruno Mars, Black Eyed Peas, Adele, mixed in with the classic cover band stuff. Honestly, most crowds don't want to hear "adventureous" stuff from cover bands. You can play more out of the box stuff, but most likely you won't be fighting with the top tier bands in your area for gigs or pay. Your band has to decide what's most important to it, follow that route, and plan your expectations accordingly.

[bluesnapper]

There's tons of great Beatles songs that rarely get covered and always go down well - everyone will recognise them and be pleased to hear something other than the standard fare.

 

The trick is finding songs that people will know, but don't get played all the time. Good luck!

[GCDEF]

Around here the better clubs only want newer, danceable songs. If you focus too much on classic rock or 80s, you'll be playing the dives. I don't know about your area, but the 20 somethings that are out late, wearing short skirts and tearing up the dance floor don't want to hear Summer of 69.

 

Yer Blues got it right IMHO. It doesn't hurt to know some of the classics, but you have to keep it current. Right now we're not adding anything more than a year or two old.

[notjonahbutnoah]

Listen Spike, play in a cover band. Rock it out. But if you guys do Mony Mony, I will find where you live and fill your mattress with expired nacho cheese... the gross kind that tastes like butter.

 

I was in a band that started doing originals, but we eventually got a cover set together to branch out to the more sprts bar type venues and make some extra cash. Our cover set was great imo. We were just a 3 piece and I used zero pedals, so all our stuff was real strpped down and rockin. It all sounded like sweet sweet 70's rock. We chose good songs too like Gloria, Can't Explain, Fell In Love With A Girl, Fortunate Son, lots of Bon era ACDC like Girl's Got Rhythm and Bad Boy Boogie, stuff like that.

 

It was kind of a Niche thing and we weren't really a $1000 guarantee at a fancy wedding type band, but we did alright, and people loved it because everyone likes simple rock n roll, but hardly anyone does it right.

 

But of course, it all depends on your goals and locality. Just don't do Mony Mony, ok? Oh or Some Kind Of Wonderful. Don't do those. Ever. Please. Think about that chesse in your sheets man, I'm not {censored}in around!

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

 

Listen Spike, play in a cover band. Rock it out. But if you guys do Mony Mony, I will find where you live and fill your mattress with expired nacho cheese... the gross kind that tastes like butter.

 

 

Do it Spike, DO IT!!!!!!!

 

Play dat Mony Mony thang:thu:

[wagdog]

Learn Mustang Sally.

 

A lot.

 

lol... no really.

[A_Gitarman]

I'm in a classic rock cover band (link below) & we try to do songs that:

 

1) the audience enjoys/ dances along

2) WE enjoy playing

3) show off our strong points

 

The first point above means that yes, we're playing stuff like Summer of 69, Love Shack (pukes) and Don't Stop Believin'; our crowd just loves that schlock. However, point 2 and 3 mean that we also get to play things like Frankenstein, Carry On My Wayward Son, Renegade & Sweet Emotion. Heck, we've even been known to play Lady Gaga or Adele from time to time (our primary lead singers are both female).

[Strenge]

Leading causes of modern wars:

 

Oil rights

Religious differences

Cover band names

Cover band setlists

 

Not necessarily in that order.

 

More seriously, try stuff out and see how it goes. The songs you think are going to go over great might fall flat and vice versa.

[photon9]

I'm in a cover band, but we haven't played out yet. We're hoping to fill a niche doing top 40ish 90s songs and 2000s songs, e.g. Weezer, Fuel, Train, Uncle Cracker, Alice In Chains, White Stripes plus some classics thrown in for good measure. We all like what we're doing and hopefully the audience will too and respond to it. We need about 15 more songs to do a full night and some time to tighten everything up. Since we haven't played out yet we'll just have to wait and see how it goes. But no one around here is doing {censored} like that and they're all pretty much well known songs so I think it will play out well. If not I love playing them anyway in the garage with our friends and gfs as the audience. Good times.

[Beyer160]

Are you getting together with some buddies to play sports bars on Wednesdays for free beer, or are you trying to go pro? In the former case, just learn whatever you want that gets played on classic rock radio. In the later case, learn everything that has ever been played on any radio station, ever.

[guitarman3001]

 

Around here the better clubs only want newer, danceable songs. If you focus too much on classic rock or 80s, you'll be playing the dives. I don't know about your area, but the 20 somethings that are out late, wearing short skirts and tearing up the dance floor don't want to hear Summer of 69.

 

 

hrmm...I disagree. Some of the songs that get the best crowd response for us for that age group are bar band standards like sweet home alabama/all summer long, roadhouse blues, the joker, zz top, ac/dc, etc... and bon jovi is also pretty much always a sure thing with crowds of almost any age.

[kayd_mon]

 

Around here the better clubs only want newer, danceable songs. If you focus too much on classic rock or 80s, you'll be playing the dives. I don't know about your area, but the 20 somethings that are out late, wearing short skirts and tearing up the dance floor don't want to hear Summer of 69. Yer Blues got it right IMHO. It doesn't hurt to know some of the classics, but you have to keep it current. Right now we're not adding anything more than a year or two old.

 

 

What part of Florida?

[Spike Li]

Listen Spike, play in a cover band. Rock it out. But if you guys do Mony Mony, I will find where you live and fill your mattress with expired nacho cheese... the gross kind that tastes like butter.

 

You know Id never heard of that song until you mentioned it... thanks for that

 

To clarify I just joined an already established band who was looking for a bass player, and I was tired of not being in a band. Im actually loving bass so its all good

These guys havent been together long but have a few small gigs under their belt. They are working the "pro" angle and hope to get regular pub gigs in the future. I dont mind this, its just that when I went out the other weekend I heard the same songs blasting out from every venue I walked past... I thought it might pay to stand out from the crowd?

 

Of course no one wants to hear obscure songs theyve never heard of before, but I was thinking more of adding in some reworks of classics to spice things up a bit, like what Me First and the Gimme Gimmes do, but Im not so sure the other guys share this view:

 

[video=youtube;qu0HTIuihy8]

[video=youtube;7_nUWie6VOY]

 

or even stuff like

[video=youtube;596qaxm-u4o]

[video=youtube;OBmM79YadYM]

 

I dunno, Im under the impression that people like cover bands because they like the energy of a live performance, as opposed to listening to a juke box, but maybe Ive got it wrong?

[DaveAronow]

 

Around here the better clubs only want newer, danceable songs. If you focus too much on classic rock or 80s, you'll be playing the dives. I don't know about your area, but the 20 somethings that are out late, wearing short skirts and tearing up the dance floor don't want to hear Summer of 69. Yer Blues got it right IMHO. It doesn't hurt to know some of the classics, but you have to keep it current. Right now we're not adding anything more than a year or two old.

 

 

We Will be at The Watering Trough in Largo the last thursday of this month(and every month).

 

It will be ladies night, and if the history of our last two years of playing there stands true, we will once again have 500 to 700 people crammed in that club, with the average age about 25, the vast majority of them will be hot beautiful young country girls. We play mostly line dancing country at that place, but we WILL play some classic rock covers, Summer of 69, Sweet Home Alabama, La Grange, Copperhead Road, etc, and there will be at least 200 people on the dance floor, mostly girls on the dance floor during these songs. Point is is that any song from any era is fair game as long as it is a good song, and as long as you mix it up, genra and era wide.

 

And by "good song", I mean popular song, as in big radio hit.

Those are the songs your audience consider good.

 

 

We have found that All Genras are fair game including classic rock, as long as you mix it up and don't concentrate on any one genra.

 

 

You don't have to "keep it current" or keep it anything, really, as long as you mix it up and play radio hits that people know.

 

Radio hits are hits for a reason. Because masses of people love them.

 

Playing in a cover band is not at all like playing in an original band. In an original band, people are there to see you, because they love your band, and they love your songs, (hopefully).

 

In a cover band, people are there to dance to their favorite songs, the radio hits, and if you are lucky, you might slip in an original here or there, but no one is going to tolerate more than a song or two, no matter HOW good the song is, if they haven't heard it before.

 

And one other thing. I know there is a certain pride, and I hear it all the time, bands say, "yeah, we do covers but we do em OUR way, and don't try to copy what someone else did. Well in my experience, and that is a LOT of experience, this is ok if you are an original band, and you are doing a remake of a cover tune, then yes, make it your own, but in bar gigs where you are mostly hired to entertain people that want to dance to their favorite songs, the closer you reproduce the song you are playing, and the more diverse your song list is, or, more genras, more styles, as long as they sound like who you are covering, the better you will do.

 

Most of the bands I see proudly proclaim that they do covers "their way", and are trying to work as cover bands, don't usually do we'll or get asked back to clubs. In fact most of the ones I see doing this sound like they CANT sound like the song they are covering, so they pay themselves on the back, congratulating themselves on their originality.

 

People in bars there to drink and dance, don't give a rats ass about your originality. In fact, when the song doesn't sound like who it is supposed to sound like, it just sounds wrong to them and doesn't reflect we'll on the band. That is not to say, don't pick a few things out here or there, put a little spin on it and keep it fresh and lively, but do this very sparingly. You should mostly try to sound as close as possible to who you are covering. You are a cover band. You will be perceived as not very good by the masses, mostly non musicians and non musical people that have nothing else to compare you to other than what they know to sound right, which is the original recording of that song.

 

I've been doing this a LONG time. I have decades of playing in both original bands and cover bands and bands that tried to get away with being equal parts of both, and a few thousand shows under my belt, not to mention seeing all the other bar bands and the things that make them either succeed or fail. I've seen just about everything in the past thirty years. Truth is, there is an actual art to covering bands and trying to get as close sounding to the original recording as possible, especially across a diverse song catalogue.

 

Trust me, save your originality for your own songs, and nail the covers as close as you can and people will love you for it if you pull it off we'll. You might think your original take on it makes you RAWK and make you sound special, but in the masses of people there to drink and dance, it is just going to sound wrong and they will perceive you as not very good.

One thing I have seen work very we'll are medleys as long as they make musical sense, especially if they share a relatively common beat, or at least bpm, but the songs in the medley, in fact, seem more interesting to people if they are from different genras and eras,.

 

Very opinionated about this, but I know of which I speak. Every cover band I've been in that has followed this formula ended up being one of the most popular and busiest bands in whatever town or city we were working in. The ones that didn't follow this formula, I never stayed in long because the bands just didn't get work,.or return dates. I've seen a ton of great monster musicians scratch their heads at why they can't keep gigs when they "know" they are good. The reason is they are not good in the eyes of the customers that are comparing them to the radio.

 

The band I'm in now is no acception..

 

We stay completely busy, booked out months in advance, have a waiting list for clubs that want to book us.

 

We do a ton of work as a cover band, and we also back many original artists hired as their band to do original shows. The artists that hire us to be their band for a show, or a tour, love us because we are really good at reproduc ing THEIR music as it sounds on their cds or whatever. We get a lot of work this way and have about ten different artists that use us as their band.

 

I love the original scene but that is not what we are talking about here.

 

We play mostly radio hits from any genra, from any year all the way back to the early fifties.

 

I'm lucky enough to be playing with some great players right now that get it bigtime, the difference between trying to work as a cover band and working as an original band. It is like two different bands, really.

 

These guys are good, can play anything, and actually take pride in learning parts right, music wise,, tone wise,, and especially vocal, including harmonies, because that is what most people focus on the hardest. Sorry guitarists, but the vocals really make or break a song. We guitarists and bass players and drummers are not that important.

 

Damn, I didn't mean to type this long, but I felt like I really had a lot to share. I've been doing it a long time and have managed to pay my bills and live comfortably. Not because I am any better than anyone else musically, but because I have seen what works over and over and over again, and have pretty much weeded out what doesn't work.

 

Anyway, if you are still reading this ,I hope you at least consider what I am saying and give it a try. If you can pull it off, you WILL be successful.

 

Key points:

 

Diversify your song list, more eras,, more genras, you will just have that many more opportunities to play different places

 

Try to play what the people want to hear and not necessarily what YOU want to hear.

Stick to radio hits. Certainly out of the tens of thousands of songs to choose from, you can find plenty you actually like,

And as equally importantly, DO try to nail the songs as closely as you can to the original recordings. The closer you get, the "better" you will be perceived in the ears of the clientele.

 

I have a ton more to say on this but I like to keep things short, so good luck.

[kayd_mon]

It's about the energy, atmosphere, drunkenness, and yeah, all the songs they know even when they're plastered. That's why simple pop songs they hear every day go over well.

[jaxn slim]

I've had the best luck by picking a specific theme, genre, decade, artist, or something similar and sticking to it. All the bands that I've played with for longer than 3 years did that, for example a southern rock band, a Johnny Cash tribute, and a 90s rock cover band. If everyone is in agreement from the beginning about what the band is supposed to be, it prevents a lot of headaches down the line. Plus it's easier to market yourself if you can describe the band in one sentence. It's easy to get overwhelmed with all the possibilities out there. But if you can narrow it down to something that would make everyone in the band happy, you'll have a much better experience.

[DaveAronow]

A short list of songs we do that go over, as in pack the dance floor at every single gig we do, no matter what the overall genra the club clientele is, or country bar, general old dude classic rock bar, dance club, ie funk, R&b, etc, country bar, clubs with very young clientele, average age early 20s, ....

 

These songs all go over extremely well at ALL types of places...

 

Cupid Shuffle(packs any dance floor in any club everytime no exceptions.

Sweet Home Alabama(we do a medley, throwing in all summer long, parts of oh black water and take a walk on the wild side)very reliable

Wanted Dead or Alive

YMCA(Yeah, I Know, but you want to pack the dance floor? It works like magic.)

Paranoid, or whatever the official name of the song is(Green Day)

Funky Music

Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy

We usually conine the latter two in a medley

Brown Eyed Girl

The Dance

Shake Your Booty

Purple Rain

Faithfully(Journey) We usually only do one, two at the most slow songs a set, but don't forget, people DO like to slow dance

Mustang Sally(not as popular with under 30 crowd but a lot of older people will KILL you if you don't play it(god I hate that song)

God Bless The USA(Even people that aren't patriotic will usually pretend they are and cheer for this song)

Courtesy of the Red White and Blue(Toby Kieth) (same reason as above)

Walk this Way

Pride and Joy

Another brick in The Wall(doesn't usually motivate dancing but gets great response)

Bunch of U2 songs, choose your pick

Hard To Handle

Should I stay or should I go

What I like about you

Summer of 69, sorry, people love this song, all ages, all genras

You Shook Me All Night Long( no one in my band can sing this, but we save it for sit ins for people who can sing it, instant floor packer)

Shes a Brickhouse

Superfreak

Kung Foo Fighting(This blows older people away because they never expect such a song)

Crazy Bitch

Paralyzer

Moves Like Jagger

Rock and Roll all Night

Bad Girlfriend

Forget You (Cee Lo Green)

Hit me with your best shot(we do a ton of female songs reserved for female sit in vocalists)

Lips Of an Angel

 

There are more, and some of these are ridiculously cliched and beat to death, but they got that way because they go over well.

 

They STILL go over well.

 

And another cool note, or uncool depending on your perspective, is some of the old joke taboo songs that you dare not play for fear of being skinned alive burned at the steak, hung, drawn and quartered, are actually becoming popular again.

 

Like, dare I say it, Freebird, and Stairway to heaven. Also, Smoke on the water. These songs are getting great responses and now seem to be heavily favored compared to the few holdouts that are trying to keep the decades old tradition of hating them alive. We get regular nightly requests for all of these from people that are NOT joking.

 

Another interesting idea that always works, is adding a quick popular television theme song as a tag to the end of any song with the same key and relative beat. Really throws people off guard and gets great responses. Use it sparingly. Couple times a night.

[Spike Li]

Man, I gotta say thanks heaps for the really informative posts Dave!

 

[GCDEF]

 

What part of Florida?

 

 

Tampa

[GCDEF]

 

We have found that All Genras are fair game including classic rock, as long as you mix it up and don't concentrate on any one genra. You don't have to "keep it current" or keep it anything, really, as long as you mix it up and play radio hits that people know. Radio hits are hits for a reason. Because masses of people love them.

 

 

That's pretty much what I said. Don't focus on classic rock. I didn't say don't avoid it. If that's all you play, you'll play dives. If you mix it up and include new stuff, you'll do a lot better. I can imagine the country and line dance stuff you do going over really well, especially in South Pinellas. I don't think a whole lot of other bands around here are doing that.