Weird Setlist Omissions

"Burning Spear" probably isn't even top 10 most played SY songs but it's "the one with the screwdrivers and the riff"

they didn't play "kool thing" when i saw them at the hollywood bowl a couple years ago; they were only doing 1985-88 material that night.

their top 10 most played looks like: schizophrenia, teenage riot, tom violence, white kross, kool thing, bull in the heather, brother james, eric's trip, 100%, expressway...none of which have been played at, like, half the shows they've played since it was released.

The last few times I went to see Small Factory, they started "Suggestions" but then played "In Between Days" instead. Grrrr.

Monster tour REM; barely a single song from the entire catalogue of pre Warners albums/singles/ B sides. maybe 1 or 2 tops (usually So Central Rain, maybe Fall On Me)
in a 25 song set.

re Radiohead and Creep, they opened with it at the Reading Festival in 2009 and did the most heartfelt version i'd heard since the 90s, an amazing unexpected moment as they'd not played it in Leeds the night before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpmO_7yKUHM

Feeling your pain aero
Replace "your biggest hit" with "that cover from the Youtube you did for somebody's birthday" or "that out-of-character novelty song" and you'll be in the same damned boat as 75% other indie rock acts on their way to indie rock hell

Depeche Mode. first time i saw them on the Violator tour (1990) they did next to fuck all from the entire first 4 albums and the whole 81-85 singles album.
so no Just Can't Get Enough etc. incredible gig mind. Bowie too in 1996 at the Phoenix fest he barely did a non 90s hit. that was amazing too though!

Replace "your biggest hit" with "that cover from the Youtube you did for somebody's birthday" or "that out-of-character novelty song" and you'll be in the same damned boat as 75% other indie rock acts on their way to indie rock hell

― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, October 9, 2012 11:06 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh yeah. really gotta be careful what you put out there that could easily become a fan favorite without you wanting it to be.

I've seen SY lots and don't think I've ever not seen them play "Kool Thing".

I've seen them twice and I don't think they played it, but thinking abt it I literally don't remember a single song they played either time except for a 40-minute version of Diamond Sea

OH OF COURSE: Sinead.

She famously introduced a Wailers song, saying it was "a song by one of the greatest songwriters of our time", and somebody said "...Prince?" and she said "NO I'M TALKING ABOUT PETER FUCKING TOSH"

(xpost: at an all-ages outdoor summer festival, at a university, when they were the only act playing.)

imagine Sinead has only song Nothing a handful of times live ever

* actually the report included a "fuck that fucking midget" but I don't really approve of that, Sinead

song sung

but ppl going to see her prob wouldn't expect it

Prince did a version when I saw him this year, but it wasn't v good. His Martika autocover was better.

oh yeah. really gotta be careful what you put out there that could easily become a fan favorite without you wanting it to be.

I don't think too many artists are thinking "uh oh, this song/cover is Too Good or Too Random, I better make sure everybody switches off their cell phones lest it make me a million dollars" but maybe I'm wrong? Usually the realization that Satan was sitting next to you that day comes many years later when people won't stop shouting "Citibank! Citibank!" because of a plum license

oh i know. i'm just saying...i've watched bands play a set full of the best songs they could write, and then they throw in an '80s cover or some kind of jokey thing with swear words in the chorus, and the crowd goes nuts and i think "what a shame, that's all these idiots will remember about the show now." and sometimes that ends up being all i can remember too.

iirc Prince plays NC2U live all the time? xxp

like Alien Ant Farm? they supposedly would just mess around playing the "Smooth Criminal Riff" while warming up. then people asked them to play the whole song. then they got signed, and the label wanted to put it on their album. and now it's the only thing anyone knows them for. maybe they're fine with it, maybe it's not big loss that nobody knows what their actual songwriting is like, but to me that's illustrative of how slippery the slope is. (xpost)

xpost Bowie is one of those guys that gave a huge hunk of his catalog its own farewell tour, though.

When I saw Sinead in 2007 she totally played "Nothing Compares 2 U."

ooh yeah that's a good example

xp re Alien Ant Farm

Prince played it, too, a couple of weeks ago.

When I saw Gotye a few months back, he/they sort of snuck the ubiquitous hit into the middle of the set, iirc.

I was on the house for the second ever performance of Making Mirrors material, two days after the album came out (six weeks after the single had, the week after it went to #1) and he played it in the middle there too

The Pogues only play Fairytale of New York when their banjo player's niece is in town or something.

Didn't Neil Young refuse to play anything out of On The Beach untill it was reissued?

Leonard Cohen never used to play "Famous Blue Raincoat". He's started playing it in the past few years though.

Replace "your biggest hit" with "that cover from the Youtube you did for somebody's birthday" or "that out-of-character novelty song" and you'll be in the same damned boat as 75% other indie rock acts on their way to indie rock hell

Hitting rock bottom for a band presumably occurs when people start shouting for "that song people mistakenly think is one of yours due to prevalence of incorrectly-tagged mp3s on Limewire".

Did people ask for "There She Goes" at Boo Radley gigs?

(That's not incorrectly taggged, neccessarily, btw)

Didn't Neil Young refuse to play anything out of On The Beach untill it was reissued?
Saw him play Ambulance Blues in 98 or 99, so that isn't right. But that isn't exactly a weird omission since the legacy of that album was really created since it was reissued, it seems.

yeah rem played 'ambulance blues' w/ him at a bridge benefit late 90s; peter buck had requested it and said neil's reponse was 'why would you want to play THAT?'

Replace "your biggest hit" with "that cover from the Youtube you did for somebody's birthday" or "that out-of-character novelty song" and you'll be in the same damned boat as 75% other indie rock acts on their way to indie rock hell

Yeah, Ted Leo did a wacky mash-up cover thing of "Maps" and "Since U Been Gone" about 8 years ago and people still shout for it at his shows.

I'm pretty sure I saw a Sonic Youth show in Hollywood in the late 90s where they ONLY played "The Diamond Sea"!

I've seen The Walkmen five or six times and they have never played "The Rat."

i like the 'not playing the hit version of the hit' workaround -- like Springsteen doing the acoustic demo arrangement of "Born In The U.S.A." then they can't complain that you didn't play it, and might actually appreciate getting a different take on it. or you can do one of those medleys where you breeze past the big hit in 30 seconds.

saw mark farner at a local park this summer and he omitted "we're an american band." puzzling until i realized he didn't write or sing that one. still, though.

In the late '90s, Counting Crows used to play this deconstructed, almost unrecognizable version of "Mr. Jones". They at least had "A Long December" to fall back on at the time, though. Pretty sure they eventually got over themselves and started playing the original version again.

xp Mark Farner is also a born-again Christian now and probably doesn't want to sing about doing teh groupies and such.

Did he do it when he toured w/Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band?

Another 'not playing the hit version of the hit' workaround: NIN playing "Closer to God" instead of "Closer".

saw mark farner at a local park this summer and he omitted "we're an american band." puzzling until i realized he didn't write or sing that one. still, though.

You should have just started yelling for him to play it, like the drunk dude next to me at a Wilco show who kept shouting out for them to play "Chickamaugua".

I wonder if Joe Jackson has ever *included* "Watching The Detectives" in a set...

I did hear Elvis Costello once did "It's Different for Girls" and "I got your number written on the back of my hand" as warm-ups...

It's weird how Ryan Adams won't play "Summer of '69" anymore.

When I saw Wesley Willis, he refused to play "Rock 'n' Roll McDonalds". Responded to repeated shouted requests with something like "I played that song 817 times and that's ENOUGH! McDonald's will kill your ass!"

I saw McDonald, Scaggs and Fagen this summer (lords of rythym or some name like that) and each of them played some of their biggest hits. Scaggs did not play "Lido Shuffle"

OMG! I didn't think I'd ever heard Boz Scaggs before, so I listened to "Lido Shuffle," and after all these years I just assumed it was Van Morrison.

No, no, Van Morrison was the guy who sang "Dancin' In the Moonlight".

Bands that refuse to play a song of theirs cos it's popular is a shitty thing to do.

If i was in that situation and i was really sick of the song, I'd just play it right off the bat at the start of the set and say "Ok, all you people who came for that one song can leave now"

It's funny this thread goes so long and no one brings up Bob Dylan.

I saw him about ten years ago and he didn't play "Like A Rolling Stone" or "Rainy Day Women" or "Lay Lady Lay" or…

… but of course, no one expected him to play any of those songs. I dare say that not one dumb ass walked out of there, grumbling about getting ripped off because he didn't get to hear "All Along the Watchtower".

How does a musician – like Springsteen even – ever get to that point where their fans don't expect the Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & 2 every time they play?

The Boss is pretty well organized. He knows exactly where/when he's played everything, so can modulate accordingly.

By writing a real huge load of other songs...

That are actually good and performed well, etc. Unlike Dylan, who can barely croak through his hits. Springsteen is an ace salesman.