# What musicians/bands refuse to play their hits in concert? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 2, 2010, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037 "2010-03-02T21:07:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Musky\_Moon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90db22/32.png) [@Musky\_Moon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musky_Moon)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037/41 "2010-03-03T19:41:20Z")
> [@HelloNinja](#): > > Radiohead doesn’t play “Creep” anymore. While rare, it does happen. I was surprised to hear them play both “creep” and “fake plastic trees” the last time I saw them. That show was as close to a greatest hits show as they will probably get. I heard from a fan that the next show, three days later, was almost entirely from In Rainbows. I would have been happy with that too. ---
**Author:** ![Iggins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Iggins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggins)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037/42 "2010-03-03T19:44:21Z")
Sir Mix A-lot gave some serious attitude about playing his hits when I saw him several years ago. Looking at the crowd, easily 90% of the people were the SWASS/Seminar age group… Starting almost two hours late, and only playing for 50 minutes didn’t endear him much, either. Maybe that was a blessing, as it was Mix, after all. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037/43 "2010-03-03T20:28:12Z")
> [@beatlejuice](#): > > I saw the Allman Brothers this summer and they only played Jessica with Melissa as the encore. The rest of the show seemed to be a competition between a guitarist from Government Mule and another non-Allman member. For the number of hits they had, this was a major disappointment.☹ They don’t refuse to play their hits at all - they just don’t play every one of them every single night. (It’s true they don’t play Ramblin’ Man and Blue Sky, but that’s been true since Dickey Betts was fired 10 years ago.) Most of the stuff they play comes from their first four albums or so, and they hardly touch their last album. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037/44 "2010-03-04T00:45:09Z")
Todd Rundgren has never, as far as I know, played “We Gotta Get You A Woman” in concert. He’s constantly changing the nature of his tours, trying different approaches. As a fan, I know, if I don’t like this tour, wait a year and he’ll do something entirely different. So he’ll work in the hits that fit the format. I probably won’t see him on this upcoming tour of Robert Johnson covers - it’s the type of Blues that I really can’t stand. So he’ll have some of his older, bluesy songs like “Black Maria” and “Once Burned”. And the people who showed up to hear “Bang On The Drum All Day” will be disappointed (good!) ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037/45 "2010-03-04T01:05:44Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Bob Dylan is famous for not playing his more familiar songs, and, when he does play them, doing them in versions that are almost unrecognizable. But, then, pretty much anything coming out of Dylan’s mouth is unrecognizable, including “and”, “or”, and “the”. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037/46 "2010-03-04T01:58:42Z")
Free Bird!!! We wanna hear Free Bird!!! ---
**Author:** ![Rrose\_Selavy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bcef8e/32.png) [@Rrose\_Selavy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rrose_Selavy)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037/47 "2010-03-04T02:09:28Z")
“No. We ain’t gonna f’ing do Stonehenge!” ---
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037/48 "2010-03-04T02:24:38Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > Bob Dylan said once that occasionally band members suggest a song of his to do and he has to ask them how it goes. OK, but can you imagine how many songs Bob has written in his career? There’s just no way he would be able to remember them all. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037/49 "2010-03-04T02:27:05Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > But, then, pretty much anything coming out of Dylan’s mouth is unrecognizable, including “and”, “or”, and “the”. Without trying to be snarky, can I ask how many times you have seen Bob Dylan perform live, and what the time frames of the shows you attended were? He, like most musicians who play live on an almost constant basis, has had many performance highpoints and low ebbs, but his live shows as of late have been crystal clear, emotionally charged, poignant retrospectives of his legendary 45+ year-long musical journey. ---
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037/50 "2010-03-04T02:30:03Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > And I can’t really blame these guys. It’s got to get old and, frankly, boring to do that sort of thing endlessly when what you are interested in playing is something you’ve been working on and that’s in your head now. Yes, but they are being paid thousands and thousands of dollars for a few hours work. And the crowd has paid good money to hear them. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037/51 "2010-03-04T06:14:37Z")
Some artists with nasty breakups don’t play their old stuff. John Fogerty had a ugly breakup with CCR that spent years in the courts. Assholes even sued him because _Centerfield_ sounded too much like CCR. He wasn’t allowed to play the old CCR hits. I saw him a few years ago and he was playing them then. But, I’m sure he has to pay royalties. That’s gotta suck since he wrote all those songs, Paul McCartney didn’t play Beatles hits for at least 15 years after their breakup. He did play them in a tour a few years ago and must have paid royalties to Michael Jackson. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037/52 "2010-03-04T07:50:41Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Rush used to guarantee that they’d play all of each new album except one song during each show. The rest would be the older stuff. Even now, with 30+ years worth of recordings to draw from they make sure to hit most of each new album. To cope with demand for the older stuff, though, they’d switched to three+ hour shows with an intermission so they can do the new stuff and still provide fanservice. Of course, serious Rush fans actually _want_ to hear the new stuff and not just the hits 😃 And we recognize that Geddy sang _ridiculously_ high when he was younger (Geddy himself has said as much) and we don’t begrudge him the fact that, at 50+ years old he can no longer shriek like he did at 23 and so can’t really do those older songs. When I saw them in '08 the did only one song from 2112 and nothing from before that. > [@aceplace57](#): > > Some artists with nasty breakups don’t play their old stuff. John Fogerty had a ugly breakup with CCR that spent years in the courts. Assholes even sued him because _Centerfield_ sounded too much like CCR. He wasn’t allowed to play the old CCR hits. I saw him a few years ago and he was playing them then. But, I’m sure he has to pay royalties. That’s gotta suck since he wrote all those songs, It was his original record company he was sued by, not the band (at least as far as the songs went). That record company held the publishing rights to his songs, and so he was forced to pay royalties when he performed them. As luck would have it, a few years ago that record company fell on hard times and was bought out by Fogerty’s current record company, which did the right thing and restored his royalty rights. From [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fogerty): > [@](#): > > The sale of Fantasy Records to Concord Records in 2004 ended the 30±year estrangement between Fogerty and his former label as the new owners took steps to restore royalty rights Fogerty gave up in order to be released from his contract with Fantasy in the mid 1970s. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037/53 "2010-03-04T08:10:55Z")
> [@BigNik](#): > > I’ve seen Ben Folds twice and haven’t heard “Underground” or “One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces”. Like some of the other bands on this list, I think Ben Folds has enough hits that it’s possible to go to a concert and not hear some of them without it being a “That song again?” situation. I’ve seen him three times and “Brick” was only played once and “Philosophy” was only played twice. However, “Song For the Dumped” was played at all three concerts. To much raucous applause I might add. ---
**Author:** ![Rrose\_Selavy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bcef8e/32.png) [@Rrose\_Selavy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rrose_Selavy)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037/54 "2010-03-04T11:43:26Z")
To turn the thread around a little has anyone been at a concert where the band play some new stuff that happens to be a future classic and the best they’ve ever done so far? I can see it now "Hi, we’re the Beatles, ok we’re gonna forget about all those cover versions of old skiffle tracks we normally do …here’s something a couple of the band put together …hope you like it…it’s called “Love Me Do”… ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037/55 "2010-03-04T12:35:07Z")
I’ve read that Madonna won’t do Like a Virgin any more. Which is perfectly fine because a 50 year old woman prancing about on stage singing that song would be ridculous ---
**Author:** ![GreatStuffMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f04885/32.png) [@GreatStuffMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreatStuffMan)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037/56 "2010-03-04T13:21:32Z")
The Offspring is probably a shitfest live these days. They’re playing this summer in my hometown area, but I wouldn’t dare pay for a ticket just to see them ruin my expectations. Seeing as how their music has declined in quality over the years and how their “Greatest Hits” was the biggest pile of junk I’ve ever heard (mostly tracks I had never heard, and I’ve been a fan of theirs since I was six years old), I’d bet against them actually doing a well-balanced live set any day soon. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![typoink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037/57 "2010-03-04T13:38:20Z")
Around 2003-2004, I saw Styx live and they performed very few of their classics. Most of their greatest hits they DID perform were squished into a fairly brief hit medley towards the middle of the show. I think some legal difficulties may be partly to blame, but it was pretty lousy to pay something like $50 per ticket to hear them mostly play tracks off their crummy most-recent album. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037/58 "2010-03-04T14:17:27Z")
> [@Rrose\_Selavy](#): > > To turn the thread around a little has anyone been at a concert where the band play some new stuff that happens to be a future classic and the best they’ve ever done so far? Sort of. Back in circa the late 70s I saw Rod Stewart in Pittsburgh. The opening act was an unknown band called Air Supply. People were there to see Rod Stewart. They (we) booed Air Supply from their second or third number on. Maybe a year later I remember being shocked to hear Air Supply on the radio. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037/59 "2010-03-04T14:40:14Z")
> [@Mangosteen](#): > > Yes, but they are being paid thousands and thousands of dollars for a few hours work. And the crowd has paid good money to hear them. But how do you know that the whole crowd expects them to play only their hits? There are certainly many concert goers who appreciate a surprise performance of rare, obscure or even brand new songs, me included. A greatest hits show with songs from 35 years ago which everybody heard a thousand times, played in their original arrangement, is one of the most boring things I can imagine. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037/60 "2010-03-04T14:54:38Z")
> [@Shirley\_Ujest](#): > > I’ve read that Madonna won’t do Like a Virgin any more. Which is perfectly fine because a 50 year old woman prancing about on stage singing that song would be ridculous You think? I’ve always read that song as coming from the perspective of someone who was tired, haggard, and jaded–only to be renewed by new love. It may well be MORE appropriate now. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musicians-bands-refuse-to-play-their-hits-in-concert/531037.md?page=4)