Pub landlord 'bans' certain songs

[fumps]

I agree with the landlord.

If i hear any of that banned list i leave.....also still got the blues, House of the rising sun & sit down !

I'm gone after the first few bars

[ken_white]

one of my bands play two of them amd the other band plays one..

I really don't understand why i'm in two cover bands lol

[spinynorman]

[quote name='Shambo' timestamp='1348046479' post='1808406']
I don't think some of you guys give the audience enough credit. I've lost track of the number of times I've heard pub band members say this or that overplayed song is 'what the punters want to hear'. You might well get a few pissed girls up in front of the singer dancing to 'sex on fire', or dads nodding their heads telling you they're always loved 'where the streets have no name', but you have to look past them to the bored looking people loitering away from the dancefloor. Those bored ones are the ones who go out regularly and have heard the same set list done to death, usually badly, by some middle aged men who live for those weekend moments when they convince themselves they're a rockstar. There's a miriad of interesting songs, that your average punter would recognise that don't get murdered in the pub every weekend. It doesn't have to be the obscure stuff your moody guitarist cryw***s himself to sleep to, and any new take on an old song would be most welcome too.
[/quote]

You've got an odd mix of attitudes to the audience there. First, we don't give them enough credit, then a portion of them are pissed up girls, who apparently enjoy dancing to boring songs played badly by middle aged men, while their dads nod sagely to U2 songs and miserable characters loiter in the shadows, wishing the band would play that tune they like, but can't quite remember.

Being middle aged, I'd welcome more pissed up girls in our audience. Better by far than the dark-lurking characters who don't have a clue who Garbage or Elastica are and eventually sidle up to the singer and ask for "Born to be Wild".

[Shambo]

I've stopped loitering miserably in the shadows and taken to getting up and leaving after the first couple of songs, (you can usually tell after the first two songs), and trying a different pub. If you came to my local and started your set with a suitably raucous rendition of 'Line Up' I might stay for another pint.

[bigd1]

[quote name='Shambo' timestamp='1348070693' post='1808873']
I've stopped loitering miserably in the shadows and taken to getting up and leaving after the first couple of songs, (you can usually tell after the first two songs), and trying a different pub. If you came to my local and started your set with a suitably raucous rendition of 'Line Up' I might stay for another pint.
[/quote]
The thing is as we play in bands, or at the very least play Bass guitar. Our way of listening is different than "Joe Public".
"Joe" has come out for a chat with his mates and a couple of pints with a band playing. Most of the time they are not really listening.
We as musicians go out to listen to the band.
We want to see something different, new songs or even the old ones done in a new way. If a band then comes on and plays songs we have heard millions of times, played the same way, we are very disappointed.
Meanwhile "Joe" is getting full of beer, talking away when [b]All Right Now[/b] is played by the band, him and his mates know this, they know the words and sing along. The band then play [b]Wishing Well[/b] He goes home thinking "what a great band, they played stuff we all knew, none of that new rubbish nobody knows the words for".
[b]Say No More !! [/b]

Edited September 20, 2012 by bigd1

[crez5150]

I was doing a dep gig with a band last week.... Typical 'pub' band..... sex on fire, Dakota, Don't look back in anger, you know the set..... Was speaking with the Landlord of the pub and he's moaning that most of the bands on the circuit (Essex) have a similar repertoire and he and his punters have noticed this..... So I tell him about my band (Disco Genre) which he likes the sound of..... and get booked in October for a try out and then he gives me another 6 dates for 2013. Two days later I get a call from another pub in the chain given me another 5 dates for 2013... and he say he's gonna recommend me to another pub....

[JTUK]

[quote name='bigd1' timestamp='1348130026' post='1809594']
The thing is as we play in bands, or at the very least play Bass guitar. Our way of listening is different than "Joe Public".
"Joe" has come out for a chat with his mates and a couple of pints with a band playing. Most of the time they are not really listening.
We as musicians go out to listen to the band.
We want to see something different, new songs or even the old ones done in a new way. If a band then comes on and plays songs we have heard millions of times, played the same way, we are very disappointed.
Meanwhile "Joe" is getting full of beer, talking away when [b]All Right Now[/b] is played by the band, him and his mates know this, they know the words and sing along. The band then play [b]Wishing Well[/b] He goes home thinking "what a great band, they played stuff we all knew, none of that new rubbish nobody knows the words for".
[b]Say No More !! [/b]
[/quote]

I have to say that any band doing that sort of set will never be very popular around here..they'll play to a few but they will never be a good draw. Maybe in that sense, they audience expect more.so that band will get a gig or two and plod along and disappear un-noticed after a year or two.

I'd applaud bands making more effort than that and would be straight out of the door if that was all that was on offer.
Getting people to a gig is one thing..keeping them there is another...and venues expect regular bands to have enough new numbers for a new set after about 4 dates in the year.

[fumps]

[quote name='crez5150' timestamp='1348130405' post='1809598']
I was doing a dep gig with a band last week.... Typical 'pub' band..... sex on fire, Dakota, Don't look back in anger, you know the set..... Was speaking with the Landlord of the pub and he's moaning that most of the bands on the circuit (Essex) have a similar repertoire and he and his punters have noticed this..... So I tell him about my band (Disco Genre) which he likes the sound of..... and get booked in October for a try out and then he gives me another 6 dates for 2013. Two days later I get a call from another pub in the chain given me another 5 dates for 2013... and he say he's gonna recommend me to another pub....
[/quote]
Ya see mate if my local has booked a disco band I'd be there to see that.

Another covers band doing what you list before, I wouldn't come in from the smoke shelter.

[crez5150]

[quote name='fumps' timestamp='1348137874' post='1809757']
Ya see mate if my local has booked a disco band I'd be there to see that.

Another covers band doing what you list before, I wouldn't come in from the smoke shelter.
[/quote]

It's mad... we don't play many pubs because of the pay... but we are getting loads of offers at the moment and I'm using them as a showcase gig for our function/wedding clients

[fumps]

[quote name='crez5150' timestamp='1348138248' post='1809759']
It's mad... we don't play many pubs because of the pay... but we are getting loads of offers at the moment and I'm using them as a showcase gig for our function/wedding clients
[/quote]
Yes mate but it's something different, and it's something you can dance to. There are too many covers bands all covering the same songs, I don't see a problem with covers, it's just every band sounds like the same band.
what's more something that is not a droning metal band either. (By the way I'm an ex metal head myself but there are some gash bands out there)

good on yer mate, it's nice to know some rays of sunshine are out there hope it gets better for you as well !

[Doddy]

It's alright for people to moan about bands playing the similar sets,but all too often you play something different
and you get people shouting for Oasis or Skynard or whoever. If you are obviously a soul/disco/whatever band
then people will specifically come to see you,but the general pub goers all too often request the same songs again
and again. I've seen lots of pub bands that play more 'obscure' songs,and the audience often look bored and they
rarely get rebooked.The biggest reaction of the night is invariably when they play 'All Right Now' or 'Sex on Fire'.

[LiamPodmore]

[quote name='fender73' timestamp='1348059669' post='1808631']

We got asked to do a Hootie and the Blowfish tune for a specific gig along with a James Morrison song. So we learned them and tried them at 2 gigs...they bombed big style - nobody knew them....

Graeme
[/quote]

We did a Hootie song ourselves once, got it video'd, stuck it on youtube and it then got tweeted by Darius Rucker (Frontman of Hootie and the Blowfish).

Liam

[JTUK]

[quote name='Doddy' timestamp='1348141782' post='1809870']
It's alright for people to moan about bands playing the similar sets,but all too often you play something different
and you get people shouting for Oasis or Skynard or whoever. If you are obviously a soul/disco/whatever band
then people will specifically come to see you,but the general pub goers all too often request the same songs again
and again. I've seen lots of pub bands that play more 'obscure' songs,and the audience often look bored and they
rarely get rebooked.The biggest reaction of the night is invariably when they play 'All Right Now' or 'Sex on Fire'.
[/quote]

If they don't get booked/rebooked then that is their lookout..? but you have the choice between average bands doing the same old set or an average band doing something new..??
Now, if you are a good band doing sonmething new, you are ahead of the game, but doing the banned list is the easy cop-out IMO,

We can pretty much ID most pubs by the bands they have, what sort of punter goes there but it is also down to the band
to possibly educate a few people.
Depends on the pubs and why you play them. We treat them as a showcase and the chance to play what we want... for £50 a man or whatever, I am not going to play songs I don't like.
Pubs are too much work for the money anyway

[spinynorman]

It must be a different market in rural Warwickshire. There's only two bands I can think of round here that can be guaranteed to play Sex on Fire, and they're party/function bands who charge 4 figures and don't get booked for pubs. One of them will usually be booked to headline civic events and pub charity days, because they're insanely popular and deliver bus-loads of girls and their escorts, who will spend any amount on drink to ensure they get pissed up. And I think they charge for those as well. We'd do it for free, but rarely get asked.

There's another band who do All Right Now and other such Dad's rock, but their guitarist plays everything in the style of Hank Marvin, so I suppose that counts as doing it their way.