Backstage With the Band

[Kramerguy]

What guilty pleasures do you add in, if any?  Or just stuff you think other bands generally don't do, or what you do different-

For us-

Sponge - Molly

Metallica- Fade to black

Black Keys - Gold on the ceiling

Imagine Dragons - It's time

Morning parade - Headlights

Tal Bachman - Shes so high

[dan88z]

Carry On Wayward Son- Kansas

What a Fool Believes- Doobies

Bennie and the Jets- EJ

Head Over Heels- Tears for Fears

Don't You Forget About Me- Simple Minds

These are all indulgences for us, but they go over well if placed in the right spots in the set.

[Mutha Goose]

We'll throw in Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath) every now and then. But this gets a great reaction when we do it, probably because we do not do it often.

We add at least 1 new song every couple of weeks (mostly because this keeps it interesting for us), so if there is a song that doesn't get enough of a response a couple of shows in a row, it's gone.

[Nobody Told Me]

Alter Bridge - Open Your Eyes

Queensryche - Another Rainy Night

Thin Lizzy - Cold Sweat

Velvet Revolver - Fall To Pieces

Iced Earth, Iron Maiden, Dio, etcetc.  All of these will clear a dance floor in no time, but sometimes before the drinks kick in, people just want to watch the band. We play one or two of these on occasion, and then hopefully right back into something that's going to make the ladies dance. Where the dancing women go, so the men will follow.

[Blackbird 13]

 Our cover band is there to entertain other people, to play the music that they want to hear, that they love, and that they want to dance to.

That said, a few of the songs we play that would probably get cut if not for our fondness of playing them...

"Nothin But A Good Time" - Poison

"I Believe In A Thing Called Love" - The Darkness

"Gangsta's Paradise" - Coolio

"Just Like Heaven" - The Cure

.. but even with that said, we've had times where all four of those have knocked it out of the park. We tend to do The Darkness' song more often than the rest, it's becoming something of a signature tune for us.

[stevmac1]

"Take Your Mama" - Scissor Sisters  (our singer has a high voice)

"Chelsea Dagger" - The Fratelli's  (good sing-along)

[Old Fart Rocker]

In my New Country band, we're doing Cowboy Song by Thin Lizzy and Back In The Saddle by Aerosmith. Both songs go over surprisingly good.

[jeff42]

hmmm...we have a ton of non-standards. As you know we are not your average 3 piece when it comes to tunes.   Two come to mind that I am not sure they are total "guilty pleasures" because sometimes they work really well sometimes do fall flat.

So, if anything I'd say our arrangement of 

Zoot Suit Riot- Cherry Poppin' Daddies

Get Busy- Sean Paul

[Blackbird 13]

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Old Fart Rocker wrote:
In my New Country band, we're doing Cowboy Song by Thin Lizzy and Back In The Saddle by Aerosmith. Both songs go over surprisingly good.

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A lot of people tend to treat new country as if it's some sort of underground seperatist genre. It's not, and when you act like it is, it's pandering. 

I remember opening for a country act (Billy Dean), and my band played Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" as one of the songs in our set (as it was hot on the radio at the time). The agents backstage got this nervous look as they gazed out at the crowd..... only to see them singing along note for note. Agent types then chilled out.. and I remember thinking "the guys booking this can't really be that shortsighted, can they?". I had a friend accomplish something similar with Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" in an opening gig for Jason Aldean. The crowd will know those songs, regardless... and they aren't so out of left field as to alienate them.

I'm not at all saying you or your group is that way at all.. it's cool that you toss out some Thin Lizzy and Aerosmith in a country band!

Just a general piece of advice to those who aren't familiar with the genre..... Treating country fans like they're the Beverly Hillbillies is not generally a way to warm yourself up to that crowd!

[Old Fart Rocker]

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Blackbird 13 wrote:

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Old Fart Rocker wrote:
In my New Country band, we're doing Cowboy Song by Thin Lizzy and Back In The Saddle by Aerosmith. Both songs go over surprisingly good.

---

A lot of people tend to treat new country as if it's some sort of underground seperatist genre. It's not, and when you act like it is, it's pandering. 

I remember opening for a country act (Billy Dean), and my band played Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" as one of the songs in our set (as it was hot on the radio at the time). The agents backstage got this nervous look as they gazed out at the crowd..... only to see them singing along note for note. Agent types then chilled out.. and I remember thinking "the guys booking this can't really be that shortsighted, can they?". I had a friend accomplish something similar with Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" in an opening gig for Jason Aldean. The crowd will know those songs, regardless... and they aren't so out of left field as to alienate them.

I'm not at all saying you or your group is that way at all.. it's cool that you toss out some Thin Lizzy and Aerosmith in a country band!

Just a general piece of advice to those who aren't familiar with the genre..... Treating country fans like they're the Beverly Hillbillies is not generally a way to warm yourself up to that crowd!

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Yep, agreed.

Today, the lines have blurred between country, rock, and pop which I think is great. This blending of genres has brought a whole lot of new fans to Country music, me included.

BTW, I'm not surprised that a Thin Lizzy and Aerosmith song go over well because we're a Country band. I'm surprised because I wouldn't consider those songs to be top hits unless you're a fan of those bands.

[WynnD]

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jeff42 wrote:

hmmm...we have a ton of non-standards. As you know we are not your average 3 piece when it comes to tunes.   Two come to mind that I am not sure they are total "guilty pleasures" because sometimes they work really well sometimes do fall flat.

So, if anything I'd say our arrangement of 

Zoot Suit Riot- Cherry Poppin' Daddies

Get Busy- Sean Paul

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I can't picture Zoot Suit Riot without horns. (Great song, lousy topic.)

[guido61]

I can't imagine there being any song that I personally love playing so much that I'd get much pleasure -- guilty or otherwise -- out of performing it in front of an audience that didn't particularly want to hear it.  Much less can I imagine there would be any song that 5 or 6 of us would feel that way about.

So we don't do such songs.  I never have, really.

The biggest pleasure I get is when we are able to put a twist on a song and sell it to the audience in way we might not be able to otherwise.  But if the audience doesn't dig it, then I get no pleasure from it.

Our two current most-successful examples of this are the way we do a rocked-up version of "Feel Like Makin' Love" --- I'm 95% sure doing the Bad Co. version would be a total flop with most of our audiences and even the version we do--in and of itself-- probably wouldn't work most of the time either.  What makes it work is the way the singer sells the vocal.

The other is our mashup of "Stayin' Alive" and "Another Brick In The Wall."   "Stayin'" is pretty sure fire for the crowds we play for, but "Brick" would completely fail on its own.   Putting the two together in the manner we do makes it one of the consistently most popular songs of the night, though. 

[jeff42]

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I can't picture Zoot Suit Riot without horns. (Great song, lousy topic.)

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We do about half of it in a montage with some other stuff. Like I said sometimes the "kids" love it sometimes not so much. its about 12 seconds in

[tlbonehead]

I would say your first and last one mentions are both fairly standard, or have been played a ton onstage.

[tlbonehead]

Cowboy Song has always gotten covered quite a bit around here.

[tlbonehead]

Brick almosat always kills when we do it, but we also have far different followings.

[tlbonehead]

I would say probably 1 out of 4 songs we do( or I do at Solo shows) might be considered a standard.

[jeff42]

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Nobody Told Me wrote:

Queensryche - Another Rainy Night

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awesome!

[vort]

"I believe in a Thing Called Love"  - The Darkness

Guilty pleasure for our lead guitarist, but it does go over!  Usually a set closer.

[nousername]

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jeff42 wrote:

hmmm...we have a ton of non-standards. As you know we are not your average 3 piece when it comes to tunes.   Two come to mind that I am not sure they are total "guilty pleasures" because sometimes they work really well sometimes do fall flat.

So, if anything I'd say our arrangement of 

Zoot Suit Riot- Cherry Poppin' Daddies

Get Busy- Sean Paul

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Off topic and mostly to sound cool, but I was friends with The Daddies from 1990 until 1998. Saw over 100 shows. They snuck me into bars when I was underage, signed my car door after it was painted with a giant top hat and CPD logo, I was given their last independent release one month ahead of on sale date, invited to parties (one of which I met Angelo from Fishbone), etc, etc. All the good stuff one would expect from knowing a regional band. Good times...