Surprisingly Duff

[Little Dragon]

I have read a couple of threads where people have listed the 'go to' songs for a cover band, (Dakota, Sex On Fire etc.)and got to wondering, is there songs that all instincts say should be floor fillers and yet, surprisingly, always fall flat? Interested in people's experience.

[asingardenof]

We tried playing Regret by New Order and have never had such a negative response to a song. Admittedly that was the song where my amp failed so there was no bass in it, but apparently even allowing for that it was still unpopular.

[upside downer]

We thought that 54-46 That's My Number  by Toots & the Maytals would have them all up and at it.

 

We were wrong 😄 not a skanker in sight!

[Downunderwonder]

Had Stuck in the Middle bomb a few times.

[Greg Edwards69]

We played "Edge of Seventeen" once.... only once.

Edited July 27, 2023 by Greg Edwards69

[Muzz]

Apropos a couple of Police numbers (Message In A Bottle, Roxanne) always going down well, we chucked in Walking On the Moon. Maaaan, that song goes nowhere fast; it was touch and go as to who lost the will to live first, us or the audience...

 

Funnily enough, and proving Fitzgibbons Law Of Contrariness*, Stuck In The Middle Witchoo always goes down well...

 

 

* Don't look for this one, I just made it up...

[Happy Jack]

Anything by Tom Petty.

 

Absolutely cracking songs by one of favourite artists, all guaranteed to clear a dance floor like a stink-bomb.

 

[Rich]

2 hours ago, upside downer said:

We thought that 54-46 That's My Number  by Toots & the Maytals would have them all up and at it.

 

We were wrong 😄 not a skanker in sight!

It works a treat in our set, but then again we are a ska band...  

[leroydiamond]

'Get the funk out' by Extreme and 'Sweet Emotion' by Aerosmith. We were a classic rock covers band, but these two tunes got zero reaction

Edited July 27, 2023 by leroydiamond

[Lozz196]

In a punk covers band I was in we decided to do The Sex Pistols version of Substitute, received a lukewarm response at best.

[BassAdder60]

5 hours ago, Greg Edwards69 said:

We played "Edge of Seventeen" once.... only once.

We gig that every set and it’s liked in darkest Suffolk !

 

Our female singer does an amazing job and as close to Stevie Nicks as you could want 

[BassAdder60]

Get Lucky by Daft Punk .. bombed 

 

Black Velvet - yawn !! 
 

I think it all depends on the crowd on the night for sure !

We play the Trooper by Maiden and if the crowd are mostly non maiden fans it falls flat. You know when you have maiden fans in !! 

[Graham]

Runaway Baby by Bruno Mars never goes down as well as I think it should

[Gasman]

While my guitar gently weeps - I cannot see why or how anyone could dance to it but it seems to be a permanent fixture in our set list.

[Greg Edwards69]

37 minutes ago, Graham said:

Runaway Baby by Bruno Mars never goes down as well as I think it should

I’m surprised. It seems to work every time we play it. Admittedly, it appears to be one of his lesser known tracks.

[gafbass02]

Waste a moment by kings of Leon, I know nothing about them, so have no concept of whether it’s well known or not, but it falls flat quite often.

[Rich]

14 hours ago, Graham said:

Runaway Baby by Bruno Mars never goes down as well as I think it should

 

14 hours ago, Greg Edwards69 said:

I’m surprised. It seems to work every time we play it. Admittedly, it appears to be one of his lesser known tracks.

It usually seems to work for us too. Mind you, we do Bruno's live version with all the James Brown snippets in the middle, and Cold Sweat sometimes gets confused looks from some of the younger audience members.  

[Graham]

We drop the key 3 semitones down to C, so it's possible it doesn't sound quite right to the audience maybe?

 

Or perhaps we're just not playing it very well 😁

[gary mac]

On 27/07/2023 at 10:03, Happy Jack said:

Anything by Tom Petty.

 

Absolutely cracking songs by one of favourite artists, all guaranteed to clear a dance floor like a stink-bomb.

 

Yep, have experienced that 

We thought Last Dance with Mary Jane would go down a storm.

[grenadillabama]

Every band in Alabama does Mary Jane's Last Dance ! It is as common as Free Bird almost. I like the more obscure stuff like Here Comes My Girl . I played at an open mic "2000 Light Years from Home" .They seemed to like it.