Less ‘Popular’ songs in setlist.

[EssexBuccaneer]

What do other basschatters think about building your setlist, regarding popular songs vs less well-known?

 

I understand the need to get people up and dancing/singing - that’s how you get rebooked, but so many covers bands have identikit setlists (Sweet Child O’ Mine, livin’ on a prayer, Basket Case et al). Don’t we all want to mix it up a bit? 
 

How niche can you go in a pub full of punters who all expect to hear Mr Brightside? 

[MKay]

This is a good point......we used to play Bat out of Hell, (album version), and it became very popular. Less well known songs on the current set list include Remedy by The Black Crows, Wayward Son and Jet, (WIngs).....Bicycle Race is on the subs bench.

 

We see that punters appreciate something different, especially if there has been effort put into it to learn them correctly. 

[Mudpup]

The trick is to get a good balance of standards and some interesting curve ball stuff. But the curve balls have to be recognisable and can be hard to find. And we really stay away from the Killers and Sex on Fire to try and retain a point of difference. If people want that sort of thing they can find it in plenty of other places. Thinking of the obvious song and then trying to take a couple of steps sideways is a good plan.

 

We pick up loads of gigs because we seem to have found a kind of sweet spot and the common denominator is that people need to be able to sing the chorus even if they had forgotten the song or never knew who it was in the first place. I call them trigger songs. If you can get people singing and dancing for most of the set they will be staying for the evening and that's what the landlord needs. We get a lot of feedback at the end of gigs about how nice it is to hear some different songs for a change though.

 

Consequently we have stuff like Sweet Child, Dakota and Living on a Prayer in the set but we also have things like Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls (it's amazing how that gets everyone singing the chorus), a rocked up Maniac from Flashdance (all the 50 something laydees will have a sing/dance to that one), Design for Life by the Manics (massive chorus), Echo Beach (everyone remembers that and it's got a great tempo and groove) and True Faith by New Order. No one else locally does these although a few local bands have started to copy some of our set as a result. 

 

Doing a search on You Tube for known songs but a cover version is a good source of inspiration. Here's a couple of examples below that we found...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 5, 2023 by Mudpup

[Muzz]

It's a fine line, punters in pubs aren't generally going in there wanting to be challenged (when I'm considering songs for the set I always have in the back of my mind the quiet groan from an audience at a big band gig when the singer says 'This is something new from our last album'...)  It ain't right, musically, but it's a fact that people want to hear what they know, so a few of the Usual Suspects need to be done. A walk down familiar but less well-trodden paths can be interesting for the band - I heard Brimful Of Asha done recently, for example (just guitar, bass and drums), and the crowd loved it. I think it's important for the band to make a song theirs and make it sound good, no matter how everyday popular it might be - as another example, an acoustic-ish version of Not Nineteen Forever (slower acoustic start before livening up after the first verse) goes down as well as the full-on version, and there's the Irony card (as long as the crowd's with you*): wedding crowds always loved I Hate Everything About You later in the evening... 

 

* And sometimes even if it isn't: we always have the start of Eye Of The Tiger in the bag for if it kicks off - that always diffuses the tension in the room... 🙂

Edited March 5, 2023 by Muzz

[Happy Jack]

I more-or-less run the set lists for both my main bands, and I always tend to err (if it is indeed erring) on the side of crowd-pleasers. I leave the more obscure stuff for my various side-projects, especially those where nobody expects to make any ... y'know ... money an' that.

 

Obviously it's vital to know your audience, if that's at all possible.

 

With The Junkyard Dogs I play some large town-centre cattle-markets on a Saturday night and pretty much every bloody song needs to be recognised by the third bar, but I also play some tiny music-afficianado pubs where they welcome something a bit different, or at least unexpected.

 

In a vaguely similar fashion, with Damo And The Dynamites I play plenty of WMCs and Socials where it's the obvious that gets the applause - Elvis, Buddy, Chuck, Eddie Cochran - but when we play the more specialist venues it's all about the Rockabilly stuff.

 

Edited March 6, 2023 by Happy Jack

[MKay]

On 05/03/2023 at 13:22, Muzz said:

It's a fine line, punters in pubs aren't generally going in there wanting to be challenged (when I'm considering songs for the set I always have in the back of my mind the quiet groan from an audience at a big band gig when the singer says 'This is something new from our last album'...)  It ain't right, musically, but it's a fact that people want to hear what they know, so a few of the Usual Suspects need to be done. A walk down familiar but less well-trodden paths can be interesting for the band - I heard Brimful Of Asha done recently, for example (just guitar, bass and drums), and the crowd loved it. I think it's important for the band to make a song theirs and make it sound good, no matter how everyday popular it might be - as another example, an acoustic-ish version of Not Nineteen Forever (slower acoustic start before livening up after the first verse) goes down as well as the full-on version, and there's the Irony card (as long as the crowd's with you*): wedding crowds always loved I Hate Everything About You later in the evening... 

 

* And sometimes even if it isn't: we always have the start of Eye Of The Tiger in the bag for if it kicks off - that always diffuses the tension in the room... 🙂

Eye is in our current set list.....maybe we should put it after RATM to get that desired effect? 😉