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.
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.
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.
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!)
But, then, pretty much anything coming out of Dylan’s mouth is unrecognizable, including “and”, “or”, and “the”.
Free Bird!!! We wanna hear Free Bird!!!
“No. We ain’t gonna f’ing do Stonehenge!”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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”…
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
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. 
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.
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.
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.
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.