Guaranteed dancefloor fillers

[elom]

Playing a gig last night and I was struck once again by how well certain songs are always received. You know, the ones where people just have to get up and dance, even if nobody else is dancing. We've got a few of these in the set but could do with some more so I'll show you mine if you show me yours!

Any genre, whatever you play - what gets 'em moving? Not merely the good stuff, the real guaranteed killers.

For us (rock/indie covers band) they are:

Song 2 - Blur
She sells sanctuary - The Cult (an oldie but it seems that everyone knows it)
I predict a riot - Kaisers

and the daddy of them all...

Place Your Hands - Reef (just the opening chords of this and people are on their feet)

So what are yours?

[E_MaN]

you cant really 'dance' to song 2 by blur reaLLy.

Any decent and gibb or bee gees or jackson will get people moving. Ive always thought of doing a cool assortment of a timberlake song, people have to dance to him man....

[mikeh]

Stuck in the Middle always works, and (argh) Dance the Night Away!!!

[outsider70]

T.Rex. I Love to Boogie.The Sweet, Wig Wam Bam. Works for us every time!

[stewblack]

Killers "All These Things I've Done". Always works whatever the gig whatever the crowd, and it's not really a dance song is it?

[stingrayfan]

+1 on Reef. People love that song.

We find these do the job:

Chelsea Dagger - Fratellis
Predict A Riot - Kaisers
Town Called Malice - Jam

[ashevans09]

"The Passenger" by Iggy Pop always seems to get an awesome response from our shows...

+1 to "All These Things I've Done" - goes down a storm as well.

[Thunderthumbs]

Oddly enough, despite my band doing a few obvious dance covers, the one that surprised me the most was....

Little Respect (Erasure).

Firstly, because we don't have a keyboard player (but we do a good version even if I do say so myself);
Secondly, because I have never liked Erasure, and admit to actually enjoying playing it now;
Lastly, it ALWAYS gets people dancing.....regardless of age....from 18 to 80.

[paul, the]

This makes me want to study musicology. Fascinating.

[spike]

You Can't Hurry Love - The Supremes
Higher And Higher - Jackie Wilson
Do You Love Me - The Contours

Always work for my band

[niceguyhomer]

Yep - what Spike said;

Higher & Higher
Do You Love Me

and

Everybody
Shake a Tailfeather
Town Like Malice (for the younger element)

[markytbass]

A mate and I did an open mike night a few weeks ago. Anarchy in the UK went down well.

In the past I have found these fill the floor.

Dead Kennedys, Police Truck
The Knack, My Sharona
Black Crows, Too Hot to Handle.

[ARGH]

Strangley,'No more heros' by the Stranglers always seemed to work in an old coverband I worked in...But Motown/Stax stuff always hits the nail on the head!

[Merton]

Interesting Hard to Handle is credited to the Black Crowes...

We find that singalong stuff like Heaven is a Place on Earth, Living on a Prayer and Don't Look Back in Anger work well, bit like the Reef song coz they're "fist pumpers" I guess.

We're about to unleash Footloose and Wake Me Up before You Go Go so I'm interested to see how they go down.

[lee4]

Good Times-Chic
Rhythm Stick-Ian Dury(I ca'nt play it spot on but its close enough for function gigs)
Mirror in the bathroom-The Beat
Summer of 69-Bryan Adams(sorry,someones got to play it!)
Everybody needs somebody-Blues Brothers

[Kiwi]

[quote name='lee4' post='90196' date='Nov 18 2007, 11:53 AM']Good Times-Chic
Everybody needs somebody-Blues Brothers[/quote]

+1 Pretty much anything that charted by Chic is a sure fire winner.

Same for any soul numbers that appeared on the Blues Bros too. Whoever selected the songs for that movie really knew their zeitgeist.

[simon1964]

We play mainly Indie stuff from the 90s. We recently added Cum on Feel the Noise, really as a tounge in cheek change from the rest of the set. It always goes down an absolute storm!

Edited November 18, 2007 by simon1964

[Ou7shined]

Pearl Jam's [b]Alive[/b]. We usually keep it for our last one before encores. It's not my most favourite song (although I do love playing it) but the crowd always blow the roof off in the chorus.

[butlerk02]

LA Woman always goes down really well for my band. I just wish we had a keyboard player so that we could do Soul Kitchen by The Doors. I'm sure this would be a great crowd pleaser.

Also Club Foot by Kasabian is one that goes down well.

[charic]

Biggest response ive seen was to
Status Quo - Rocking all over the world

the band hated playing it as it was just for a joke but it backfired when the entire function room stood up and moved to the dance floor lol

[stewblack]

[quote name='charic' post='90341' date='Nov 18 2007, 06:41 PM']Biggest response ive seen was to
Status Quo - Rocking all over the world

the band hated playing it as it was just for a joke but it backfired when the entire function room stood up and moved to the dance floor lol[/quote]
I'm glad you posted this as I'm in the middle of trying to persuade people that a Quo song would get a smile and fill the floor. Natch it's being seen as a stupid idea but I know it would work.

[obbm]

[quote name='charic' post='90341' date='Nov 18 2007, 04:41 PM']Biggest response ive seen was to
Status Quo - Rocking all over the world

the band hated playing it as it was just for a joke but it backfired when the entire function room stood up and moved to the dance floor lol[/quote]

We do a couple of Quo numbers and are not ashamed of it.

This does raise the bigger question however as to why do band members so dislike playing the songs that the paying punters like. I could reel off a whole list of popular numbers that my fellow band member just will not do. It's a kind of musical snobbery.

[Ou7shined]

[quote name='obbm' post='90616' date='Nov 18 2007, 11:56 PM'].....This does raise the bigger question however as to why do band members so dislike playing the songs that the paying punters like. I could reel off a whole list of popular numbers that my fellow band member just will not do. It's a kind of musical snobbery.[/quote]

Same here. We are a Pearl Jam tribute. Most people know Ten (their first album) and we get more requests from it than any other, most of them are do-able but our drummer refuses to play more than a couple of tracks off it as [u]he[/u] can't stand it.

[stewblack]

[quote name='obbm' post='90616' date='Nov 19 2007, 01:56 AM']This does raise the bigger question however as to why do band members so dislike playing the songs that the paying punters like. I could reel off a whole list of popular numbers that my fellow band member just will not do. It's a kind of musical snobbery.[/quote]
I don't think they dislike them because of snobbery. I suspect musicians love music on a much deeper level whereas the general public take a more superficial interest in it. "Play something I recognise and I'm happy". Musicians tend to like songs for other reasons, and naturally shy away from the bog standard run of the mill obvious every day vacuous chart stuff that the proles lap up. Oh hang on, that is a kind of snobbery. Hmmm.

[woodster]

From various covers/function bands i'm in......

Wild Cherry - Play that funky music

The Proclaimers - 500 Miles

The Specials - Too much too young

Bad Manners - Sally Brown

Chic - Le Freak