I have been guilty on several occasions of ending our sets with Pere Ubu's "Final Solution."

I like playing it. It's fun. Fuck y'all haters.

I really enjoy playing covers as long as it's not shit like "Brown Eyed Girl" or "Mustang Sally."

NC. No waffle.

The correct set-closing cover song is the equivalent of "going to 11" the way Nigel describes it in This is Spinal Tap. If you're playing a kickass set of originals and you have the audience in the palm of your hand, closing the set with a cover pushes everything over the top because the audience is loving your shit, and then suddenly you're playing something they recognize, too! The "ohmigod you totally pulled off that cover that was AWESOME!" reaction is pretty great when you can pull it off properly.

Exactly what happened when we did "Great Gig In The Sky" at the end of our set. We arrange it so it fades from the head into bizarre noise, then slams back in with a balls-out repetition of the main form. Best part of that show..

There's a band called Subtle that did an awesome cover of Shellac's Prayer to God..

what about opening with a cover?
of like, a radiohead song?

Or doing a whole set of covers, from the repertoire of a band you're supporting?

Coshhlocker wrote:Or doing a whole set of covers, from the repertoire of a band you're supporting?

Depending on who the headliner is, that would cause me to probably buy every drink that opening band ordered for the rest of the night.

A friend of mine has a story about seeing Steel Pole Bath Tub open for Faith No More. STBT's entire set that night, apparently, was 25 minutes of "Paranoid" by Black Sabbath. Like, they'd play "Paranoid," then they'd play it again. And again. And again. For the entire set.

Then Faith No More took the stage, and opened their set with..."Paranoid."

NOT CRAP

My friends' band had an extended tuning break where the drummer read from Kafka. it was awesome.

Marsupialized wrote:what about opening with a cover?
of like, a radiohead song?

We did that with Joy Division's "Atmosphere," except I played mandolin, and my band played drums, tambourine, and a floor tom with a tambourine haphazardly duct-taped to it.

Also it was literally the second time we'd ever played it.

Boy that was fun.

DrAwkward wrote:T
(aside: Now that we've done C/NC on cover placement and stock banter like "____ is next," can we do C/NCs on tuning breaks, monitor requests, and playing on a stage?)

Tuning breaks: sometimes you have to tune, but you should only tune when you know you are definitely out of tune. It should be done silently and quickly, ideally while the other dudes are playing an intro or something.

Monitor requests: unless you cannot hear your singing at all, let it go.

Playing on a stage: it's good generally, as it allows people in the back to see you.

Changing a broken string: bass player, if it's not the E string, you can probably let it go. Guitar player, you can usually let it go, unless it is very early in the set. It doesn't really matter if you have only 5 strings. Whatever you do, finish the song first.