Crowd pleasers like "Rocky mountain way" or "Roadhouse blues"?

Dpoirier

Fractal Fanatic
Against our better judgment, some of my cover band's repertoire receives a lukewarm welcome on the dance floor, even though we think of those songs as excellent, full of energy, impressive when well delivered, yadd-yadda. On the flip side, more simple (and even 3-chord) songs get the crowd on their feet and screaming for more. Two of the songs that surprise us as "Rocky mountain way" (Joe Walsh) and "Roadhouse blues" (The Doors).

Does anyone out therehave any other similar jewels to share? Easy crowd winners are always good to have in one's repertoire... thanks...
 
Two that surprise me are Mrs. Robinson (Simon & Garfunkle) and Solsbury Hill (Peter Gabriel). I sit out Mrs. Robinson and let our acoustic guitarist play it, but it always seems to get people on the floor. And Solsbury Hill is in 7/8 time, but that doesn't seem to deter the dancers.

We're an acoustic/electric cover band, and don't play any blues because the acoustic guitarist really dislikes the blues. A while back he broke a string mid-set, so while he was putting a new one on, the bass player, drummer, and I launched into a straight-up 12-bar blues jam. They both ad-libbed meaningless/humorous words (the drummer sang about the 401k blues, and I have no idea what the bass player was singing), but the crowd went wild. And a lot of our friends and family were amazed that we could play a whole song just making it up on the spot. Seemed pretty simple to me, but I guess non-musicians don't understand the concept of a 12-bar blues progression. The upshot of the experience is we're going to add an ad-libbed blues number to the repertoire, and let Mr. I Hate the Blues (the acoustic player) jam out on the harmonica.
 
We're an up tempo classic blues rock dance band. Songs that always inspire dancing, in perhaps unfortunate descending order of effectiveness are: Mustang Sally, Keep Your Hands to Yourself (Georgia Satellites), What I Like About You (the Romantics), Roadhouse Blues (as you mentioned), Jenny/Jenny (8675319), I Know A Little (Skynard), Bad Case of Loving You (Palmer).
 
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Ac dc’s version of Baby don’t go


Against our better judgment, some of my cover band's repertoire receives a lukewarm welcome on the dance floor, even though we think of those songs as excellent, full of energy, impressive when well delivered, yadd-yadda. On the flip side, more simple (and even 3-chord) songs get the crowd on their feet and screaming for more. Two of the songs that surprise us as "Rocky mountain way" (Joe Walsh) and "Roadhouse blues" (The Doors).

Does anyone out therehave any other similar jewels to share? Easy crowd winners are always good to have in one's repertoire... thanks...
 
We try not to play much of that, but we do play some. I can no longer play anything by Lynyrd Skynrd (great respect for the band and songs, but just tired of them). We make a conscious effort to play some "other", less burned out on, stuff.

My band's website is TeaserBand.com

Teaser, meaning we play a variety of stuff (but I was a big Tommy Bolin fan in my youth!)

We do get compliments on our variety, but you always get a few knuckleheads that just want to hear something like "Old Time Rock And Roll", so we worked it up for playing occasionally, but my favorites are Limelight by Rush and a couple of U2 songs!
 
Its a challenge finding crowd pleaser that are not brutally over played.
Depending on the venue (and crowd) I had some success with

Bullfrog Blues - Rory Gallagher
I wouldnt wanna be like you - Alan Parsons Project
Just got back from baby´s - ZZ Top
Night life - BB King
 
Its a challenge finding crowd pleaser that are not brutally over played.
Depending on the venue (and crowd) I had some success with

Bullfrog Blues - Rory Gallagher
I wouldnt wanna be like you - Alan Parsons Project
Just got back from baby´s - ZZ Top
Night life - BB King

Love the Alan Parson's tune! Used to play "The Voice" in a different band
 
Depends largely on the crowd.... songs that are going on what, nearly 50 years old, probably aren’t too popular with a demographic who is all under 30 years of age, but are timeless classics for folks who remember hearing them when they were new songs.
 
More Robert Palmer tunes …, Addicted to Love and Hyperactive …. Both used to be a complete dance floor magnets !

I’ll 2nd the Georgia Satellites ! And add the Black Crowes – Hard to handle …. Also, John ( Cougar ) Mellencamp – Lonely ol night and Hurts So Good always went over very well.

Lynyrd Skynyrd – Gimmie Three Steps, Sweet Home Alabama, Freebird …, etc;

Molly Hatchett – Dreams I’ll Never See …, was a real surprising quasi-“slow” song. It got great participation and had a solo section that you could “ssttttrrrreeeaaachhhhh” forever if you needed to.

Alan Parsons – Wouldn’t want to be like you always killed it ! And it was a fun almost funky song to play with a short but tasty solo !

We used to take a generic three chord vamp ( E – A – D ) and see how many songs we could play without stopping ( What I like about you / R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.., etc; ) …. That was more for our amusement than anything else, but the crowds always loved it ….
 
...Molly Hatchett – Dreams I’ll Never See …, was a real surprising quasi-“slow” song. It got great participation and had a solo section that you could “ssttttrrrreeeaaachhhhh” forever if you needed to.

Alan Parsons – Wouldn’t want to be like you always killed it ! And it was a fun almost funky song to play with a short but tasty solo !...

My bass player and I played Dreams I'll Never See back in the early '80s, and we're going to see if we can pull it off with the current band. I always liked the dynamics and the solos in that song, and it was always a crowd pleaser. We also used to play Wouldn't Want to Be Like You back in the day, too. Not sure if we could do a decent rendition with our current lineup. We play Alan Parson's Eye In the Sky, and it goes over real well. It's our own arrangement, borrowing from both the original recording and Marco Fanto's version. We preface it with Sirius, and I get to really put my Axe-Fx to work on that part. I'm using both synth blocks, the sequencer, and the looper.
 
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