or how about covering one of the headliner's songs, but doing a medley of it and the song they ripped off (every band has a couple of songs that are ripoffs, no?)

very rude, but i would laugh

When my previous band opened for Enon on their first tour, we covered Brainiac's "I Could Own You." Mr. Schmersal was in the bar next door.

never seen it, but if that option weren't there, i would say crap.

why the fuck would you do that?

my band opened for the volcano suns once (weird bill)

hi bob.

anyway, i had been working out the chords to "sounds like bucks" and i played it during sound check, as the suns lounged in the back of the rat.

i got some serious hairy eyeball. it was NOT COOL and I felt like a real jerk.

frankly, i would have been pleased if an opening band played one of our songs. they could only improve upon it. 99% of the bands in town were better musicians than us.

but I always had band-self-esteem problems.

DrAwkward wrote:When my previous band opened for Enon on their first tour, we covered Brainiac's "I Could Own You." Mr. Schmersal was in the bar next door.

So, I realize that this may (justifiably) open me up to be called a complete geek-fact-checker-type, but nevertheless I feel compelled to mention that "I Could Own You" is from Brainiac's earlier "Michelle Bodine Era" (that is, pre-John Schmersal). That being said, I'm sure Mr. Schmersal may've recognized your version of his deceased bandmate's song, had he been in the same building.

For a funny story concerning the consequences of covering "American Pie" while opening for Don McLean, take a look here.

On a semi-related note, I recall that about 10 years ago there was a local band who were supposed to open for Pete Best. The openers had learned an entire set of Ringo Starr covers to play at this particular show. As things turned out, ultimately poor Pete's tour was cancelled, and nobody had to hear an all-Ringo set.

some guys here played a (heavily modified, with new lyrics in spanish) version of Motion Suggests when they played with stephen malkmus. it was pretty cool because their version is better than the original imho.

I supported Wire once, and I covered 'I am the Fly' and medleyed it with that boxing song off Bugsy Malone, 'So you wanna be a Boxer...'




I am lying to you

Our band opened for The Damned (or Lords of The New Church, I can't remember) and we were asked by the promoter NOT to play "I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night" by the Electric Prunes, because the headlining band was going to play it.

Of course, we had never played "I Had To Much To Dream Last Night" ever, but after I saw how bad the headline act was, I wished we would have tried to play it.

I have some friends in bands in Athens that decided to start a 90's rock cover band and play all the frat bars. They got so popular that they won an award in a local college periodical, and made so much money that they were able to quit their "straight" jobs.

One time they were to open for Seven Mary Three at a particularly fratty bar called "Last Call", and I was told they played "Cumbersome" and only "Cumbersome" 3 or 4 times in a row until they were asked to get off the stage and were not invited to play there again.

I think that is NOT CRAP.

If I saw it in any other situation it would be CRAP.

A friend of mine actually landed a gig in DC opening for some goth/industrial/synthpop/whatevertheshit band, I think it may have been Beborn Beton or something, doing country/western covers of popular g/i/s/w dance tracks. He killed. The members of the band even offered to have him go on tour with them for a while, but sadly nothing came of it.