I think Arlo Guthrie stopped playing “Alice’s Restaurant” for 10 or 20 years because he was sick of it. Luckily, by the time I saw him in 1998, he had started playing it again. He accompanied it with an anecdote about how when he went to Jimmy Carter’s inauguration, somebody told him that when they went through the White House library, they found a copy of the album Alice’s Restaurant. Arlo later decided that that must be the long gap on the Watergate tapes, since it’s about the same length as the title song.
it’s = it is
its = that which belongs to it
Well, they did play “Hotel Yorba,” which also got a lot of airplay. Maybe they weren’t going to play both?
When I saw Blues Traveller last year, they didn’t play “Run-around” but they did play “Hook.”
Sorry I didn’t recognize you, Ivar.
Dammit dammit dammit
I know that rule.
I just wasn’t paying attention.
Easy E - I should’ve said “Hey it’s me, Ivar, from Porkdope!” I loved that look of confusion on your face when I knew your name. But you took off before I couls remind you. It’s all cool.
I also saw Tanya Donelly in the spring and she didn’t play “Feed the Trees” from her stint in Belly, easily her most well known song. She did play some old stuff from Throwing Muses, so focusing on new material is no excuse. Ah, who cares, I got a free ticket to that show.
I saw Ben Folds Five a couple months before they broke up, and I was overjoyed that they didn’t play “Brick”. It’s a slow, weenie song and they have so many more songs that kick so much more ass. Of course, Brick was the only real mainstream hit they ever had. Go figure.
I’ve seen Billy Joel twice and I wish he would have played a little more wide range of his catalog. Granted it was an awesome show, but I’d like to hear more than just what’s on the Greatest Hits CDs (which are by NO means inclusive). It probably wouldn’t go over very well, though. Hell, when I saw him and Elton John last year in Syracuse, most of the people there didn’t even know “Angry Young Man”. It’s only his signature live song, people! But oh, since it’s not on any comps, no one knows it…
Fell In Love With A Girl is the White Stripes most throwaway (and ironically, most marketable) song on their most recent album. They actually played it at the Chicago show I went to on Friday, but did it really fast. It was over in a minute-and-half max. They haven’t played it at any other shows I’ve been to.
I think bands (especially ones lead by Serious Artists) want to play music that their real fans know. At the show, almost nobody around me was singing along to songs on the most recent album, let alone the more obscure stuff on older albums.
If I had a band, I wouldn’t play my hit. I wouldn’t be a dick about it, I just wouldn’t play it. Hit songs tend to be throwaway songs, the songs that the artist feels the least strongly about.
But when all’s said and done, seeing Jack White play that slide guitar solo for “Stop Breakin’ Down” on that old, covered-in-brown paper vintage who-knows-what kind of guitar is worth the $25 (thank you Ticketmaster.)
OTOH, they aren’t selling a million records or selling out the concert hall because of their “real fans”. If they really didn’t want to get popular, I think they might have been able to manage it. But they cast their lot, and they should stick to their part of the deal.
I hear Don McLean got sick and tired of <b>American Pie</b> after a while and refused to play it.
They didn’t play “Don’t speak”?! Which tour was it? I saw them during Tragic Kingdom, and they played it then. Then again, I’ve yet to go to a concert when a band hasn’t played its most popular single, so I guess I’m just lucky 
I’ve told the story before, but a friend of mine is a friend of Don McLean, and he tells him that if there’s one thing a serious songwriter can do that’s worse that having one big hit, it’s having one big hit that’s eight minutes long. He still does it at all of his shows, but he does it early, and he says that he goes into sort of a “trance” and does it completely on auto-pilot.
Dr. J
If I were a professional musician, I don’t know how hard I’d feel like working in order to hang onto the fans who would resent me for not playing my big hit every time out. I’m not sure it would be worth it.
Seems to me there’s a big difference between a musician not wanting to play one hit that was big 20 years ago because he’s tired of it and has moved on as an artist (e.g. Don McLean) and a band that still has the hit single on the charts right this very moment during the concert because it was released only a few months ago, and it’s a hit that is the only reason many of the people showed up at the concert.
If you used that song to lure me into the concert, it’s disingenuous to refuse to play it and even mock me for wanting to hear it. (Why bother with getting a hit in the first place if you’re going to look down your nose at anyone who likes it? It’s not like those big hits just happen without any effort. Answer: You want the money and fame.) This amounts to the band saying “Ha! Tricked ya! Got your $47.50 and we’re not giving it back!”
Your choice as an artist? Sure, absolutely. But I can still think you’re an ass.
Usually when they do that, they go off stage like they ended the show, then wait a while for the crowd to cheer them back on, then they play the hit song. It’s standard concert etiquette.
If they didn’t follow the etiquette, they’re just jerks.
There are people who spend $25-$50 to hear a band play one song? (This is the subtext of a lot of the people in this thread.) If you only know (or like) one song, why on earth are you going to that concert anyway? Singles still exist, and even albums are cheaper than concert tickets.
If a band has only one hit, that song was most likely a fluke, and has little to do with their fan base – so the only real constituency for the “play that one song, and do it exactly the way it was on the record” mindset is non-fan SOs who got dragged along to the show. I don’t see those people being anybody’s main concern.
That happened at the Cake show I went to last year. And while I like just about every song they’ve done (with the exception of the title cut on Fashion Nugget…I think they have one of the best sounds in music today), and they DID play their most recent hit (Short Skirt, Long Jacket), they DID NOT play The Distance, their first hit song, which I would have liked to hear.
I’m confused. If they had played ‘Fell in Love…’, would you have gone home straight away? If they’d opened with it, would you leave as soon as they had struck the final chord, never to be seen again? Are you there to hear a band or a song?
Bands play for their fans. Fans generally like things other than the big hits. That’s why their fans - they feel the band has more to offer than what they hear of them on the radio. At a Beastie Boys show, does anyone care if they don’t play ‘Fight For Your Right’? No, they’d rather hear ‘Sabotage’.
And you never know, you could actually benefit from exposure to material that you aren’t as familiar with.
I went to the White Stripes gig at Sydney Big Day Out. I’d only heard their latest album, White Blood Cells.
They didn’t play ‘Hotel Yorba’ or ‘Fell in Love With a Girl’. Was I pissed?
Hell no! I saw one motherfucker of a punk blues show, one of the most wild events ever. They only played about five songs that I knew, but by the time they were finished, it didn’t matter. I could hear the current hits when I got home. Couldn’t hear any of their older stuff that I don’t own and radio doesn’t play. Couldn’t hear their cover of ‘Jolene’ or the stomping ‘Them Red-haired Girls Just Won’t Leave Jacky White Alone’, as played on the aforementioned beat up, cardboard coated acoustic guitar.
If I go to a gig, I want it to be special, and I’m sure the other fans do too. And really, who do you think the band cares about? The fans who have actually invested some time and money into the band, or the casual MTV viewer who likes them because they’re flavour of the month?
And sometimes, they play those hits that they usually ignore, and it makes the whole night so much more special. At a Chili Peppers show I saw a few years back, they played ‘Under the Bridge’, something apparently very rare at a Chilis show. It was special. The audience knew it, and the band knew, which meant that, instead of churning out a hit that they’re sick to death of, they performed a beautiful, meaningful song with genuine emotion, resulting in an experience that could not be gained by listening to the record.
Well, all tantrums are your own business, but if this is your method, then the White Stripes, at least, are safe from harm.
When I saw Billy Joel in concert in 1999, his set was about 80% hits and 20% lesser known album cuts. Even after a 2-hour show, my friends and I could come up with about a 90-minute-plus set of hits and other good songs that he DIDN’T play that night. It was interesting to think that he could have virtually played a full second show the next night and not have repeated any songs.
(Pardon for the musical veer.)
Tony Orlando doesn’t do “Tie a yellow ribbon”. It’s because of a dispite with the company that owns the rights (which all too often isn’t the writer). They won’t give the (usually automatic) performance discount and he won’t fork over extra dough to be allowed to perform his song.
No doubt this is not a rare event in RIAA-land so it might be the cause of other’s not performing their hits.
So if I understand this correctly, gex gex and GBH, these hit songs are created against the will of the band, who’d really rather just remain obscure and cool, catering only to the True Fan. And all those people who hear the hit song, like it, and think they should give the band a try when they come to town, they’re just pests and fools.
If only the bands would stop signing with record labels, creating songs that the public likes, and then marketing the hell out of themselves, we silly little concertgoers would leave them alone. Then they could play for their True Fans in their dad’s garage.
It’s just like celebrities who work their asses off to get famous and then bitch and moan about how people are always looking at them. “Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!” is immediately followed by “Why are you looking at me? Leave me alone.”
But for bands it’s more like “Please let me play this song for you!” followed by “Hell no, we’re not playing that.”
I think the issue may have to do more with the fans than the muscians. If I go to a concert it is because I want to hear music. I’m not listening for a particular song (in fact, I’d rather hear them do a different version of a song than the one I’m most familiar with - if I wanted to hear an exact replica of a song I’d just buy the album). It helps if the muscians are accomplished and versatile. If they can stand up there and play the same song, the same way, year after year after year, they are just doing if for the $$$ (as opposed to wanting to communicate something through the song) and I’d just as soon not have attended the show.
Plnnr - who went to nearly 100 Grateful Dead shows and never heard the same song played the same way twice.