Weird Setlist Omissions

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.

I saw Metallica a couple of times in the nineties and on both occasions they elected to not play the single they had out at the time. Even then I don't think anyone were too hurt by not getting to hear "Hero of the Day" but I remember thinking it was weird.

I like the big hit workaround solution as long as it's been a reasonable amount of time, I'm not interested in hearing a bhangra mashup version of a one year old song but I really like how Madonna will still do "Like A Virgin" live but hasn't performed it straight in decades. Everyone knows it well enough to sing along no matter what she does to it and goes home happy anyway.

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.

― cwkiii, Thursday, October 11, 2012 9:06 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the kings of that are The Police, forever futzing around with new arrangements for songs everyone would prefer to hear the way they know

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.

The last few times I've seen them, Fountains of Wayne played a slow, loungy version of "Stacy's Mom." It's pretty bad, actually. But the last time I saw them do it, Schlesinger finished the song and said "and that's what we'll be doing in the Ramada for the next thirty years" and somehow this act of contempt directed equally at the audience and themselves won me over.

xpost bowie had hits in the 90s? (except man who sold the world?)

Fame remix if you wanna count it, Jump They Say, Black Tie White Noise, Buddha Of Suburbia adap theme song, Hearts Filthy Lesson, Hello Spaceboy, Little Wonder, I'm Afraid Of Americans, prob more that an actual Bowie fan could identify

2. Wouldn't it be awesome to have witnessed The Who performing "I Can See For Miles" in the late '60s or early '70s... their biggest ever hit in America and the quintessence of the band's live sound? Well according to thewholive.net the song was performed a couple of times in 1967 and not again until 1979, by which time Keith Moon was gone.

tbf, the vocal arrangement on "Miles" was such that not only was reproducing it live impossible in 1967, but even doing an approximation would likely have been disastrous, given the lack of stage monitoring at the time.

The Who did entire tours in the 90s without playing a note from Tommy. Granted, these were the Quadrophenia tours, but none of the encore songs in the second portion of the show were from Tommy (but did include things like "A Legal Matter" and a Johnny Cash medley).

They also played about 30 shows on their 1982 tour without playing "My Generation."

wow never imagined they would've iced "My Generation" for a while.

i wonder if Madonna has ever snubbed any of her iconic hits besides the despised "Material Girl."

When Lindsey Buckingham toured "Out of the Cradle" with his "guitarmy" in ... 93, maybe? ... I don't think he played "Countdown," the album's single and one of the catchiest songs on the disc. I've seen him a half-dozen times since and he still doesn't play it.

yeah avoiding a current/recent single has gotta be especially rare and strange

The Who opened with "My Generation" when I saw them in 1982. I didn't realize at the time that it was a bit unexpected.

It was added back for the 2nd leg of that tour.

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

Portishead, touring for the s/t LP in 1997, closed their set w/ the 'Airbus Reconstruction' rock version of 'Sour Times.' Not what a lot of ppl were expecting (or hoping for, prob), but it was AWESOME

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B69I_k_xGZg

I would have walked out of that show happy.

Yeah, that would have been awesome. Portishead are by far the best -sounding- live band I've ever heard. There should be a thread for that, right?

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".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St0svOdrSR8

Portishead always had some good alternate versions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pExZagqSyD4

Weezer shows are basically alt-rock karaoke: Green Day, Nirvana, Radiohead, Oasis, etc.

When Pink Floyd regrouped in the mid/late 80's, they played Echoes for the first dozen shows of the Momentary Lapse tour, then ditched it in favour of Shine On. I'm curious if they had problems with the arrangement particularly the whooshy, seagull guitar breakdown section. I read a great quote from Gilmour once -referring to members of his touring band- stating that young musicians these days 'just don't know how to disintegrate'

― Pat Ast vs Jean Arp (MaresNest), Tuesday, October 9, 2012 7:01 AM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is the most encyclopedic breakdown on the seagull sound anywhere.

Fuckin A, thanks Chris..!

Foster the People, who had a huge hit last year with "Pumped Up Kicks" but skipped it altogether on Saturday, also managed to make the most of their brief time onstage, revamping their synthetic pop tunes with remarkable practicality.

That can't be right. 99% of their audience would only be there for that song, surely?!

remarkable practicality! lol

But 99% of their audience probably had the song on their phone already. If I was the Foster The People dude, I'd get them to shut up and all play it simultaneously off the phones parking lot experiment/Zaireeka-style.