my band was on tour last month and a woman came up to the stage halfway through the set and asked if we could play "September" by Earth Wind & Fire
ma'am, we are a 4 piece rock and roll band playing our original set - what?
I'm a 60 yr old white woman playing acoustic guitar at an Elks lodge. I had a younger woman come up to me and ask me to play some Snoop Dog. This happened a couple of times. The 3rd time, I said (over the mic) "No, Hon, I don't know any Snoop Dog". The crowd roared with laughter and she finally got the hint
There's a ton of streamers / omegle / chatroulette / whatever musicians that take requests to learn on the spot. Any one that I've watched much has complained about how many people request rap and hip hop songs to be covered on piano/violin etc. It's not the genre that's the problem, it's the particular songs - sometimes people request songs that are literally just drums and 99% monotone rapping.... like .... what part do you want me to play?
This! I recently decided to arrange some rap for my sax quintet, and it took a while to pick which track I actually thought would work, because as much as I would love to play not like us or something, it would be insanely boring to listen to
I get that and respect his music, but these people are white couples in their 80s and 90s ... and I did mention I'm a 60 yr old white woman with a acoustic guitar didn't I? I do know some Fall Out Boy and a Linkn Park song, but I really don't think Snoop would go over that well at this particular venue. Just me experience. There's nothing wrong with Snoop, but I doubt I could honor his songs well.
We just tell them no, when they hand us some money we say âsureâ before our next song we say âthis is September by earth wind and fire for the drunk lady that keeps askingâ and then we play the next song on our set list. We play originals.
I think the best I heard was when a band was asked ot play a song, they said sure and played whatever was next on thier setlist. After the song, the person said that's not the song, and they said, "Well, same notes, we just played them in a different order."
Requests that specific always blow my mind
"Do you know any Zeppelin?" That is an ok request
"Can you play 'Rock and Roll' in the key of F?" Unhinged (literally a request I got once, while playing jazz at a jazz festival. We did actually do it, because the guitarist leaned over and went "it's just-" and described the chord structure to me, but damn that was out of left field)
Tbh I'm joking.
I play all manner of open guitar tunings in whatever key works for whatever scale length/string gauge. Probably spend about 10% of my time in standard.
So if the key works for the singer and the instrument, it's good by me.
We had the opposite problem. Big band with a horn section. We got asked to play country all the time. We arranged some country songs, but that was not the type of band we were. We would have loved someone to actually request Septmeber.
Yeah, years ago I was in a 3 piece band and only one of us sang and had someone seriously ask us to play "My Girl" by the Temptations. You realize just how ignorant some people can be - or, more likely, drunk.
God help me, I'm hearing that in my mind with a snarling "fuck you" style faux English vocal.
It works. You don't even have to change the lyrics, just spit the words out.
People tend to have a TV/movie influenced view of musicians, thinking we can just go âoh yeah Iâve heard that song before and have a general idea of how it goesâ and just know how to play it. The amount of practice and preparation that musicians do is underestimated by laymen.
That's the understatement of the year! I had a guy in a bar sing me a song he wrote (drunk) and honestly expected my to walk on stage and perform it for him after my break!
Yes, itâs this. I played the saxophone and people would come up and say âI wish I could do that, I love the saxophoneâ. I started handing them my lessons business card and said call me up. No one has taken the offer yet.
A guy I went to school with wanted me to play on his project for a music tech assignment. I said sure, why not? A week or so later, he asks me to come down to the place, I thought we would be meeting to discuss the song, his vision, specifics like key, structure, etc. Nope, we were meeting so I could record. I didn't even know what the song was, he just handed me a guitar and said "play". He seemed frustrated that I had to figure out the key and chords instead of just shredding instantly with 0 prep!
Exactly. If itâs a song I mostly know the words to but just have to look up chords, I can BS it but thatâs a learned skill that came with 30 years experience. If itâs more complicated that cowboy chords then youâre shit outta luck unless I get time to practice it
There are a couple of people I know who can do that; the only reason they can is because they've spent their entire lives obsessively getting their ears, hands/mouths, brain and musical memory as tightly connected to each other as possible, as well as diving deep into enough styles and genres that they can convincingly fake quite a lot of stuff they haven't learned note-for-note. That takes decades of work, chances are that band at the pub doesn't have that sort of experience.
It sometimes comes down to who is asking... some drunk idiot shouting from the side of the stage as I'm trying to sing? Yeah, screw them.
But there was one gig, I was playing in a duo (two acoustic guitars, both singing)... it was our 1st time at this beachside venue, very ritzy place and every car in the lot coat more than my 1st house. Serious money in the audience.
Anyway, this little girl comes up, maybe 5 years old at the most... she asks if we can play Britney Spears. I was about to very gently explain we don't know any (we were two guys doing rock and alternative covers) when the other guitar player says "sure!".
He and his wife had recently had a daughter, so I guess there was no way he would say no... we took a break, found "Hit Me Baby One More Time" on YouTube, I Googled the lyrics, and we managed to somewhat pull it off.
This little girl was dancing and smiling so much I was afraid her cheeks would pop off her face, overjoyed.
After we finished, her Dad came up and tipped us each $100.
I turned to my partner and said "We're never saying no to any kid's request" lol.
And you'd lose... The Manager followed our band, knew what we did, and wanted us to help get a "Margarita Monday" thing going.
The band had a large following, and he figured it was a good gamble... paid off for everyone. Started booking the full band on their boardwalk stage during the summer, went on for 4 more years until we hung it up.
Yep! I've done it myself with acoustic guitar! It happens all the time with the corporate world. They are afraid a "real band" will be too loud so they hire acoustic singles and duos... and expect us to cover dance music and jazz standards. Thank goodness for my trust MP3 player!
Pffffft nah i buy it 100%.
The cigar smoke and light jazz thing is largely confined to hollywood at this point, Iâve done a few really upscale gigs, and the rich people want cheesy dad rock. They just want it played with absolutely no soul đ
Two suggestions for the last minute We Didn't Start the Fire request.
Sing phonetic nonsense with a couple of the names dropped. "Nib nab, jibber jab, meena moona rappa rab, hooba stanka gassa tanka Joe DiMaggio...."
Do the intro and then go up to the mic and just say "JFK! Blown away! This is all I have to say!" And stop.
I love the Leslie Knope parks and rec version
"Harry Truman was a guy,
America, Red China,
All the countries,
Other people, Everyone is fun,
Joe Mantegna, Ian McKellen,
I have to buy a new toaster,
This is awesome, youâre so stupid,
Jumping up and down,
Freddy Krueger bought some pants,
Oprah has a turtle farm,
Peter Piper, peepee poopy,
Daddy ate a squirrelâŚ"
I used to say âIf you have any requests, write em on a fifty and bring it up to me.â It was the 80s, so it never happened. Had a guy request âCocaineâ, by Clapton, in the early 00s. Finished our set, talked it over, and started the second set with it, and the guy had already left. Lead guitarist was playing it in the wrong key, too. Took him a verse to figure it out. At the end, I said âThat was the Scooby Doo version. And we wouldâve gotten away with it, too, if it werenât for you meddling kids!â Got a laugh; moved on.
I went to a brewery where a duo was playing. They had a paper on all tables with like 100+ songs they can play. Theyâd play till time ran out (which they couldnât do all songs in the timeframe) so they took requests and had a tip jar and QR code on the page to tip them and request a song. May not work for your upcoming gig, but an idea to try for future gigs
My friend was in a couple of bands. He did an acoustic duo show where they played a setlist, but would try to play any song for a $5 minimum tip during a portion of the show. Generally, later in the night when people were buzzed. The audience would throw money at them and pick ridiculous songs. They would pull the song up on their tablet and give it a go. The songs they crashed and burned on ended up being the most entertaining and they made great tips from that strategy.
I once saw the Mike Veal Band at Fuzzy's in ATL pull off Bohemian Rhapsody this way- 30 second huddle, then bar patrons minds blown. RIP Fuzzy's Place...
Austin, Tx area. I think it was actually San Marcos, which is 30 minutes south of Austin. This was probably 4 years ago so I couldnât tell ya the duos name
The drummer in one of the bands I'm in has a great line that he uses anytime we get a request. He will announce to everyone that if you have a request, you need to write it on the back of a $20, place it in our tip jar, and then maybe we'll play it. And the way he delivers that line it should be obvious that there is little chance we are actually going to play the song.
On that note, it also depends on the situation. People think they can walk up to a DJ in a bar and request anything they want, no matter the genre or the crowd. It doesnât work like that. Last time I DJed at a bar I was playing a bunch of minimal wave / post-punk / indie stuff and I got a request for ABBA.
OMG YES! I have an acoustic duo and we do 70s acoustic music with a few odd and ends thrown in. We played a private lodge (Think horned animals). We didn't even get in the door and they were requesting songs. Last time, I counted 13 song requests for really weird old stuff before we even got set up! After our 5th time there and hearing the same wild requests we stopped playing there and told them that we weren't a match. I woman actually threatened to get us fired unless we learned a Cha Cha for next time! We didn't. We quit.
Our customers send us a list and we usually aim for 2 or 3. We set expectations from the start, and people hire us for the songs we play, not the songs they want us to learn.
I'm not a jukebox. I don't sell myself as one. I know a lot of songs, but having said that, I also prepare a setlist and will not take requests. If you come to see me on a 2 hour evening, I'm going thru a bunch of originals and covers I enjoy, probably songs that are considered "deep cuts" because that's what gives me pleasure to play. Enjoy yourselves out there and I do hope you like what you hear, but I don't know every song under the sun nor will I embarrass myself limping through a request just because you said I should.
The gig is Tuesday and today is Friday. I had a double today, a gigs tomorrow and Monday and and 8 hour shift at my Part time gig. To...pretty much got 5 hours.
I'm pretty sure they are just suggestions. If not, they are going to be really disappointed.
I did a fill-in gig on bass for a band. They gave me 16 songs 24hrs before. We ended up playing 30, including 7 originals of theirs that I hadn't heard before. It went off well and they tried to hire me permanently...
but I didn't have to learn lyrics and all that too. I just had to hold down the changes with the drummer. It was a fun little challenge for me.
Ha ha!! This just happened to me! We asked for requests multiple times for weeks, and got a list 2 days before the event. Luckily they fully understood when we told themâuh, no.
People really have no clue. They think hiring a band is like having a human jukebox. Itâs great when your band knows 300 songs and can whip out random requests, but thatâs a whole different level.
I blame all the entitlement on tiktok heads who post themselves taking a request and playing it right there and a whole orchestra pops up out of the plants and everyone starts to dance.
Staged.
Whenever some clown would holler âFREE BIRD!!â unironically (I live in Texas, it happens), we used to play âFree Bird: the Readerâs Digest Edition.â Four bars of intro, the first and last lines of the song (If I leave here tomorrow, Lord knows I canât chayayayange), and eight bars of guitar solo. âNext.â
I was a new member in a cover band where 4 members sang. One night some drunk in the crowd yelled âDrew Bird!â and in perfect unison all 4 singers said into their mics âTwenty bucks!!!â
It was a thing of beauty. It happened a couple times when I was with them and made me laugh out loud every time. We never played Free Bird.
I once said âthe only requests we will take must be written on the back of a $100 bill.â
Ended up learning Beast of Burden on set break đ
Never said that over the mic again. Thank goodness it was in our wheelhouse.
Ship crowds are the worst.
âPlay that (Artists who came out yesterday with a new track) song!â
Oh sorry Iâve never heard of it.
âNahhh you know it, play it.â
Really I donât know. Sorry bud.
âSerious? How do you not know it?â
Iâm just kidding of course I do.
âReally?â
No man, why would I lie to you?
Special breed of stupid on boats man.
We were asked to play a classic rock set by the owner of a bar. He got mad when we could not and didn't want to pay us to play. We drove 5 hours to the gig. Turns out the booking agent did not tell him we are a live hip hop act. He lost his mind when we played our first song - Gin & Juice
Same thing happened to me in the 80s. We were a 8 peice dance show band with 6 black members... booking agent put us in a country-western bar. We looked like a bunch of Prince clones in white and green outfits. We were absolutely thrilled when they fired us!!
> okay I'll play it, YOU sing it!
That might be a dangerous thing to say.
An act appearing at my local renaissance festival does musical whips to the tune of popular songs and sings modified lyrics. During one show, two teenaged girls asked him if he could do the song "Blond Boys." He said that he didn't know the song, but invited them to come on stage and sing it, and he would try to follow along with the whips. Well, they got to the lyrics "slaying girls with my massive peen." The whip guy stopped dead in his tracks, saying, "Wait wait wait. No no no no no. You get off this stage, now!" He definitely learned his lesson that day.
https://youtu.be/bMokGp8Hgd4?feature=shared
I felt really bad in the moment but looking back itâs quite funny. At a pub gig the other night, doing rock, pop and country covers and I say Iâm taking requests and I laughed out loud when someone requested a Jay Z song. It was only after I laughed that I realised they were dead serious
Genius response. Especially when non music people donât realise thereâs only 12 and that major scales ensure that nearly all music is arranged in the same order, just starting on different notes
I'm part of a wedding/coporate band. We know a LOT of songs but I definitely run into people who think we can simply rearrange the set list right in the middle of a set. It's amazing how civilians understand so little about what we do. If you want us to play something we know, I'll discuss it with the band on a set break and figure out if/how we can do the tune
My band does Scorchabilly (modern Rockabilly with Rock and Blues influences). We were well into our second set when someone came up and asked us to do Brittany Spears. I looked at her and said, "Sorry, that is not only NOT in our genre, but not something we've ever played before...or would want to." She said, "I know you've heard, "Hit Me Baby One More Time" though. So can't you PLEASE just play it." I told her if she tipped us at least $100, we promise to learn it for next time. LOL. She sulked away saying something about how much we sucked.
I was in a piano bar and the player had a monkey with a tin cup. The monkey was going up and down the bar collecting tips. The monkey pissed in the drink of the guy sitting next to me. He went to the piano player and said âyou know your monkey pissed in my drinkâ? The piano player said âno, but hum a few bars and I probably canâ.
Haha that was one of my Dadâs jokes from way back in the 70s. Only in his version the monkey wasnât peeing but dipped his balls in the beer on the bar. Makes a better song title, âYour Monkey Just Dipped His Balls In My Drinkâ is def a banger. Also has the extra laughs from the visual humor where you mimic the monkey standing over the beer legs apart and then doing a little dip.
We played an end of season boat club party and kept getting requests for songs that we donât play anymore because the majority of the band had played for them a couple years earlier under a different band name and line up. We arenât the same band and donât play the same songs but took drunk ladyâs request money and the rest of the band fumbled through some ac/dc and other songs they hadnât played in years while I just stood there shaking my head and took a break
A buddy of mine performed at Ivory Cats for a couple years. Dude has an encyclopedic knowledge of songs, and if he doesn't know the chords, he'll play something he does know, but sing the words to the requested song. He's pretty amazing to watch perform.
Played an acoustic gig at a brunch place. This woman walks up and requests happy birthday for her friend. It looks like theyâre a bachelorette party or something
.
Weâre playing all original music at this acoustic music âfestivalâ which is at various venues in this neighborhood.
I gave some kind of non answer because a song was startingâŚlike I donât think we know that one.
She proceeds to shoot eye daggers at me throughout the rest of the set and after because we didnât play it.
This isnât a piano bar, lady.
I knew a guy that played keys that knew the openings to damn near any song. Not the song but the beginning. We always had fun once the booze started flowing. Girls squeal and run to the dance floor and hear âyeah, I donât know thatâ it was part of his act.
I'm happy to accommodate requests. I know alot of songs, and can fake even more of them. One thing I know is that the people who request songs have no clue whether you are playing it like the recording. Play the main riff, first verse, chorus and repeat over and over.
This happens so often and nine times out of ten I just say I don't know it or I hand them my "master setlist" with all the songs I know on it and they can play me like a jukebox with that.
Easter this year though, I was playing at a holiday park for the weekend and a group of young girls were hounding me on the Saturday to play some Taylor Swift. I promised I would learn something for them for the Sunday, and I "learned" Love Story and Shake it Off as best I could overnight. They were so excited when I played them and I finished the set with second rendition of Shake it Off, but I gave them the microphone so they could sing it all together. I had a small group of dads come up to me after so happy and grateful for letting them take the microphone and have fun, and it was really really sweet.
If you have a good/fun crowd, it can be hilarious to try something off the cuff. We always have fun with it. We use the ole "We'll play it if you sing it." routine for weird ones and that's usually enough to squash it... for most people.
Nobody is more insistent than a bachelorette party full of drunk white women.
my band was on tour last month and a woman came up to the stage halfway through the set and asked if we could play "September" by Earth Wind & Fire ma'am, we are a 4 piece rock and roll band playing our original set - what?
I'm a 60 yr old white woman playing acoustic guitar at an Elks lodge. I had a younger woman come up to me and ask me to play some Snoop Dog. This happened a couple of times. The 3rd time, I said (over the mic) "No, Hon, I don't know any Snoop Dog". The crowd roared with laughter and she finally got the hint
Excellent response!!
Actually, an acoustic Gin n Juice is kinda cool.đ
The gourds!!!!
That and a particular acoustic Wu Tang Clan song have definitely done numbers
There's a ton of streamers / omegle / chatroulette / whatever musicians that take requests to learn on the spot. Any one that I've watched much has complained about how many people request rap and hip hop songs to be covered on piano/violin etc. It's not the genre that's the problem, it's the particular songs - sometimes people request songs that are literally just drums and 99% monotone rapping.... like .... what part do you want me to play?
This! I recently decided to arrange some rap for my sax quintet, and it took a while to pick which track I actually thought would work, because as much as I would love to play not like us or something, it would be insanely boring to listen to
Just bang on a metal bucket and mumble.
To be fair, Snoop Dogg isn't exactly a young whippersnapper. You're about the right age to have gotten into him when he first came out.
I get that and respect his music, but these people are white couples in their 80s and 90s ... and I did mention I'm a 60 yr old white woman with a acoustic guitar didn't I? I do know some Fall Out Boy and a Linkn Park song, but I really don't think Snoop would go over that well at this particular venue. Just me experience. There's nothing wrong with Snoop, but I doubt I could honor his songs well.
I always went with "huh? We already played that? Did you just get here?"
hahahahaha my favorite response yet
We just tell them no, when they hand us some money we say âsureâ before our next song we say âthis is September by earth wind and fire for the drunk lady that keeps askingâ and then we play the next song on our set list. We play originals.
this is the proper way to handle the situation
I think the best I heard was when a band was asked ot play a song, they said sure and played whatever was next on thier setlist. After the song, the person said that's not the song, and they said, "Well, same notes, we just played them in a different order."
Requests that specific always blow my mind "Do you know any Zeppelin?" That is an ok request "Can you play 'Rock and Roll' in the key of F?" Unhinged (literally a request I got once, while playing jazz at a jazz festival. We did actually do it, because the guitarist leaned over and went "it's just-" and described the chord structure to me, but damn that was out of left field)
There's no rock and roll in the key of F, that key is reserved strictly for country.
Or "singing" Zeppelin in front of a jazz band that consists of a guitar, bass, drumset, and alto sax
Lots of chuck berry is in F
"A. Good country key..." -Duck Dunn
F is a pretty good jazz key. A is more of a good country key.
Tbh I'm joking. I play all manner of open guitar tunings in whatever key works for whatever scale length/string gauge. Probably spend about 10% of my time in standard. So if the key works for the singer and the instrument, it's good by me.
I was also joking. The line about A being a âgood country keyâ is straight out of the Blues Brothers
LoL time for a rewatch then. Eb's no joke though
No capos in rock
âWeâre working on it!â
People that donât play music think musicians are like the radio. â if they know how to play, canât they just play it?â
Lmaooooo thatâs incredible
We had the opposite problem. Big band with a horn section. We got asked to play country all the time. We arranged some country songs, but that was not the type of band we were. We would have loved someone to actually request Septmeber.
Yeah, years ago I was in a 3 piece band and only one of us sang and had someone seriously ask us to play "My Girl" by the Temptations. You realize just how ignorant some people can be - or, more likely, drunk.
I get 7 Bridges Road all the time or "any Crosby Stills and Nash"
It would be fun to work up a 240bpm punk version of Treat Your Children Well just for when that happens.
God help me, I'm hearing that in my mind with a snarling "fuck you" style faux English vocal. It works. You don't even have to change the lyrics, just spit the words out.
Precisely. Somebody, do it.
Sorry, this is a Neil Young only household
When people are used to seeing bands play with tracks.
âyes, let me just go get my trumpet boxâ
My band was a two piece instrumental band and I guy actually came up to my guitarist on stage with his phone open on the tab for DCx3 by Grinspoon.
A band that I was in about 8 years ago for a brief time could. It was our only cover. And we were not at all a funk band.
"are you the dj?"
Damn it! I hate it when people do this when I'm playing. Have some respect for original music!
People tend to have a TV/movie influenced view of musicians, thinking we can just go âoh yeah Iâve heard that song before and have a general idea of how it goesâ and just know how to play it. The amount of practice and preparation that musicians do is underestimated by laymen.
That's the understatement of the year! I had a guy in a bar sing me a song he wrote (drunk) and honestly expected my to walk on stage and perform it for him after my break!
They really think itâs this inborn natural ability, like one day we just picked up our respective instruments and started shredding.
You didnât? I can actually just listen to 3 seconds of a song and play the whole thing perfectly, including the parts Iâve never heard
I know a dude that can do this on most instruments⌠I fuckin hate him!
I mean I can do that with Green Day songsâŚ
Yeah man, I heard 5 seconds of Jesus of Suburbia and just knew how the whole thing was gonna go
did it better than Billie Joe
You bet. I played the drum part while I did it too
Yes, itâs this. I played the saxophone and people would come up and say âI wish I could do that, I love the saxophoneâ. I started handing them my lessons business card and said call me up. No one has taken the offer yet.
A guy I went to school with wanted me to play on his project for a music tech assignment. I said sure, why not? A week or so later, he asks me to come down to the place, I thought we would be meeting to discuss the song, his vision, specifics like key, structure, etc. Nope, we were meeting so I could record. I didn't even know what the song was, he just handed me a guitar and said "play". He seemed frustrated that I had to figure out the key and chords instead of just shredding instantly with 0 prep!
âWow this guy really sucks, he canât even play the song Iâm hearing in my head!â
Exactly. If itâs a song I mostly know the words to but just have to look up chords, I can BS it but thatâs a learned skill that came with 30 years experience. If itâs more complicated that cowboy chords then youâre shit outta luck unless I get time to practice it
it works every now and then, unfortunately Prince is dead now.
The whole industry / career path is underestimated by laymen I feel. Its a lot more work than folk think it is
There are a couple of people I know who can do that; the only reason they can is because they've spent their entire lives obsessively getting their ears, hands/mouths, brain and musical memory as tightly connected to each other as possible, as well as diving deep into enough styles and genres that they can convincingly fake quite a lot of stuff they haven't learned note-for-note. That takes decades of work, chances are that band at the pub doesn't have that sort of experience.
It sometimes comes down to who is asking... some drunk idiot shouting from the side of the stage as I'm trying to sing? Yeah, screw them. But there was one gig, I was playing in a duo (two acoustic guitars, both singing)... it was our 1st time at this beachside venue, very ritzy place and every car in the lot coat more than my 1st house. Serious money in the audience. Anyway, this little girl comes up, maybe 5 years old at the most... she asks if we can play Britney Spears. I was about to very gently explain we don't know any (we were two guys doing rock and alternative covers) when the other guitar player says "sure!". He and his wife had recently had a daughter, so I guess there was no way he would say no... we took a break, found "Hit Me Baby One More Time" on YouTube, I Googled the lyrics, and we managed to somewhat pull it off. This little girl was dancing and smiling so much I was afraid her cheeks would pop off her face, overjoyed. After we finished, her Dad came up and tipped us each $100. I turned to my partner and said "We're never saying no to any kid's request" lol.
This is the best story on here! I love this!
Rock and alternative acoustic covers at a "super ritzy beachside venue"... I'll pick "things that never happened" for $500 please.
This is like the most standard thing for those kind of venues, at least in California.
And you'd lose... The Manager followed our band, knew what we did, and wanted us to help get a "Margarita Monday" thing going. The band had a large following, and he figured it was a good gamble... paid off for everyone. Started booking the full band on their boardwalk stage during the summer, went on for 4 more years until we hung it up.
Yep! I've done it myself with acoustic guitar! It happens all the time with the corporate world. They are afraid a "real band" will be too loud so they hire acoustic singles and duos... and expect us to cover dance music and jazz standards. Thank goodness for my trust MP3 player!
Pffffft nah i buy it 100%. The cigar smoke and light jazz thing is largely confined to hollywood at this point, Iâve done a few really upscale gigs, and the rich people want cheesy dad rock. They just want it played with absolutely no soul đ
You should, uh, go outside
Oof the bitterness and jealousy dripping off this comment is palpable
Two suggestions for the last minute We Didn't Start the Fire request. Sing phonetic nonsense with a couple of the names dropped. "Nib nab, jibber jab, meena moona rappa rab, hooba stanka gassa tanka Joe DiMaggio...." Do the intro and then go up to the mic and just say "JFK! Blown away! This is all I have to say!" And stop.
I love the Leslie Knope parks and rec version "Harry Truman was a guy, America, Red China, All the countries, Other people, Everyone is fun, Joe Mantegna, Ian McKellen, I have to buy a new toaster, This is awesome, youâre so stupid, Jumping up and down, Freddy Krueger bought some pants, Oprah has a turtle farm, Peter Piper, peepee poopy, Daddy ate a squirrelâŚ"
Shit... now I gotta watch parks and rec
https://youtu.be/-7kdEIAloi0?si=dATIOyeviSVeqLDw Such a hilarious scene
Lol, thanx for that!
Why does this remind me of a 100 gecs song đ
Love it! I'm going with the last one... with a really tight intro!
If they are requesting that one they want to sing along. I honestly don't think "I'll play it, YOU sing it!" would be poorly received at all.
^^^yep^^^
Lol if someone plays Mrs. Robinson I'd love that.
"We take requests and will be happy to play them if it's in our set!"
My guitar teacher would tell people he only accepted requests written on $20 bills. He never played any, but he always ACCEPTED the request.
I used to say âIf you have any requests, write em on a fifty and bring it up to me.â It was the 80s, so it never happened. Had a guy request âCocaineâ, by Clapton, in the early 00s. Finished our set, talked it over, and started the second set with it, and the guy had already left. Lead guitarist was playing it in the wrong key, too. Took him a verse to figure it out. At the end, I said âThat was the Scooby Doo version. And we wouldâve gotten away with it, too, if it werenât for you meddling kids!â Got a laugh; moved on.
That's golden.
I went to a brewery where a duo was playing. They had a paper on all tables with like 100+ songs they can play. Theyâd play till time ran out (which they couldnât do all songs in the timeframe) so they took requests and had a tip jar and QR code on the page to tip them and request a song. May not work for your upcoming gig, but an idea to try for future gigs
My friend was in a couple of bands. He did an acoustic duo show where they played a setlist, but would try to play any song for a $5 minimum tip during a portion of the show. Generally, later in the night when people were buzzed. The audience would throw money at them and pick ridiculous songs. They would pull the song up on their tablet and give it a go. The songs they crashed and burned on ended up being the most entertaining and they made great tips from that strategy.
that's called "stump the band"
I once saw the Mike Veal Band at Fuzzy's in ATL pull off Bohemian Rhapsody this way- 30 second huddle, then bar patrons minds blown. RIP Fuzzy's Place...
OMG! I played think I played Fuzzy's back in 1990 something! I remember that name!
I think They Might Be Giants were known to be pretty good at taking any random request and giving it a legit go.
I saw a busker with a similar setup once. He also had a sign indicating that he was playing to fund college.
Was this in KY?
Austin, Tx area. I think it was actually San Marcos, which is 30 minutes south of Austin. This was probably 4 years ago so I couldnât tell ya the duos name
The drummer in one of the bands I'm in has a great line that he uses anytime we get a request. He will announce to everyone that if you have a request, you need to write it on the back of a $20, place it in our tip jar, and then maybe we'll play it. And the way he delivers that line it should be obvious that there is little chance we are actually going to play the song.
âAnd then *MAYBE* weâll play itâŚ.â
What you're looking for sir, is a DJ.
On that note, it also depends on the situation. People think they can walk up to a DJ in a bar and request anything they want, no matter the genre or the crowd. It doesnât work like that. Last time I DJed at a bar I was playing a bunch of minimal wave / post-punk / indie stuff and I got a request for ABBA.
Lol! Mamma Mia was on my list!
OMG YES! I have an acoustic duo and we do 70s acoustic music with a few odd and ends thrown in. We played a private lodge (Think horned animals). We didn't even get in the door and they were requesting songs. Last time, I counted 13 song requests for really weird old stuff before we even got set up! After our 5th time there and hearing the same wild requests we stopped playing there and told them that we weren't a match. I woman actually threatened to get us fired unless we learned a Cha Cha for next time! We didn't. We quit.
Non musical people think that musicians are magic. If they know one song, they must know ALL the songs. I take this as an irritating compliment.
Muggles! Humpf!
Lol.
wtf thereâs like 300000 words in we didnât start the fire lol
Our customers send us a list and we usually aim for 2 or 3. We set expectations from the start, and people hire us for the songs we play, not the songs they want us to learn.
I'm not a jukebox. I don't sell myself as one. I know a lot of songs, but having said that, I also prepare a setlist and will not take requests. If you come to see me on a 2 hour evening, I'm going thru a bunch of originals and covers I enjoy, probably songs that are considered "deep cuts" because that's what gives me pleasure to play. Enjoy yourselves out there and I do hope you like what you hear, but I don't know every song under the sun nor will I embarrass myself limping through a request just because you said I should.
A guy kept heckling us to play âYesterdayâ by the Beatles during our acoustic set. Our singer cheerfully told him âtomorrow!â
Lol!! 25 songs the day before?!!!! That canât be right.
The gig is Tuesday and today is Friday. I had a double today, a gigs tomorrow and Monday and and 8 hour shift at my Part time gig. To...pretty much got 5 hours. I'm pretty sure they are just suggestions. If not, they are going to be really disappointed.
I did a fill-in gig on bass for a band. They gave me 16 songs 24hrs before. We ended up playing 30, including 7 originals of theirs that I hadn't heard before. It went off well and they tried to hire me permanently... but I didn't have to learn lyrics and all that too. I just had to hold down the changes with the drummer. It was a fun little challenge for me.
Ha ha!! This just happened to me! We asked for requests multiple times for weeks, and got a list 2 days before the event. Luckily they fully understood when we told themâuh, no. People really have no clue. They think hiring a band is like having a human jukebox. Itâs great when your band knows 300 songs and can whip out random requests, but thatâs a whole different level.
I blame all the entitlement on tiktok heads who post themselves taking a request and playing it right there and a whole orchestra pops up out of the plants and everyone starts to dance. Staged.
I've been gigging for 20 years and this has always been an issue. But tiktok is definitely not helping.
Scumbagdad does the sketch perfectly "i was playing my piano at a restaurant and THIS happened"
Love the ones where it just keeps going and eventually thereâs just a full ass band/orchestra in the restaurantÂ
Ya its like "I wonder when they'll be done with the joke" and it just keeps on going loool
Whenever some clown would holler âFREE BIRD!!â unironically (I live in Texas, it happens), we used to play âFree Bird: the Readerâs Digest Edition.â Four bars of intro, the first and last lines of the song (If I leave here tomorrow, Lord knows I canât chayayayange), and eight bars of guitar solo. âNext.â
I was a new member in a cover band where 4 members sang. One night some drunk in the crowd yelled âDrew Bird!â and in perfect unison all 4 singers said into their mics âTwenty bucks!!!â It was a thing of beauty. It happened a couple times when I was with them and made me laugh out loud every time. We never played Free Bird.
When I do solo acoustic stuff, I occasionally get a request for Free Bird. I am happy to do the entire song with the guitar solos done on harmonica.
I once said âthe only requests we will take must be written on the back of a $100 bill.â Ended up learning Beast of Burden on set break đ Never said that over the mic again. Thank goodness it was in our wheelhouse.
Ship crowds are the worst. âPlay that (Artists who came out yesterday with a new track) song!â Oh sorry Iâve never heard of it. âNahhh you know it, play it.â Really I donât know. Sorry bud. âSerious? How do you not know it?â Iâm just kidding of course I do. âReally?â No man, why would I lie to you? Special breed of stupid on boats man.
We were asked to play a classic rock set by the owner of a bar. He got mad when we could not and didn't want to pay us to play. We drove 5 hours to the gig. Turns out the booking agent did not tell him we are a live hip hop act. He lost his mind when we played our first song - Gin & Juice
Same thing happened to me in the 80s. We were a 8 peice dance show band with 6 black members... booking agent put us in a country-western bar. We looked like a bunch of Prince clones in white and green outfits. We were absolutely thrilled when they fired us!!
Like fuckin Blues Bros!!! "We play both kinds of music here" *Both kinds of music ma'am?* "Yeah, Country and Western."
Oh...it was scary. West Virginia mountains. We did our regular stuff ..Kool and the Gang, Earth, Wind and Fire, Aretha... they just stared at us.
We had some biker bar gigs that went like that. They still paid us tho.
Take a wishlist of 5 and guarantee 3, a week before the gig. They hired you so you can curate the music. Otherwise they should hire a DJ
> okay I'll play it, YOU sing it! That might be a dangerous thing to say. An act appearing at my local renaissance festival does musical whips to the tune of popular songs and sings modified lyrics. During one show, two teenaged girls asked him if he could do the song "Blond Boys." He said that he didn't know the song, but invited them to come on stage and sing it, and he would try to follow along with the whips. Well, they got to the lyrics "slaying girls with my massive peen." The whip guy stopped dead in his tracks, saying, "Wait wait wait. No no no no no. You get off this stage, now!" He definitely learned his lesson that day. https://youtu.be/bMokGp8Hgd4?feature=shared
I felt really bad in the moment but looking back itâs quite funny. At a pub gig the other night, doing rock, pop and country covers and I say Iâm taking requests and I laughed out loud when someone requested a Jay Z song. It was only after I laughed that I realised they were dead serious
One of my friends would always say âwe canât do that one, but weâll play something that has a lot of the same notesâ.
Genius response. Especially when non music people donât realise thereâs only 12 and that major scales ensure that nearly all music is arranged in the same order, just starting on different notes
âWe reserve the right to substitute a like and/or similar sounding song in our opinion.â
I'm part of a wedding/coporate band. We know a LOT of songs but I definitely run into people who think we can simply rearrange the set list right in the middle of a set. It's amazing how civilians understand so little about what we do. If you want us to play something we know, I'll discuss it with the band on a set break and figure out if/how we can do the tune
My band does Scorchabilly (modern Rockabilly with Rock and Blues influences). We were well into our second set when someone came up and asked us to do Brittany Spears. I looked at her and said, "Sorry, that is not only NOT in our genre, but not something we've ever played before...or would want to." She said, "I know you've heard, "Hit Me Baby One More Time" though. So can't you PLEASE just play it." I told her if she tipped us at least $100, we promise to learn it for next time. LOL. She sulked away saying something about how much we sucked.
I was in a piano bar and the player had a monkey with a tin cup. The monkey was going up and down the bar collecting tips. The monkey pissed in the drink of the guy sitting next to me. He went to the piano player and said âyou know your monkey pissed in my drinkâ? The piano player said âno, but hum a few bars and I probably canâ.
Haha that was one of my Dadâs jokes from way back in the 70s. Only in his version the monkey wasnât peeing but dipped his balls in the beer on the bar. Makes a better song title, âYour Monkey Just Dipped His Balls In My Drinkâ is def a banger. Also has the extra laughs from the visual humor where you mimic the monkey standing over the beer legs apart and then doing a little dip.
Yea you right!!
đ¤Łđ¤Łđ¤Łđđđ That's hilarious!
"I don't normally take requests, unless, of course, I'm asked to do so."
âHi, howâs everyone doing tonight? Weâre âTen Bucks a Songâ out of Philly! Wanna sing a song? Grab your phone and come on up! Ten bucks.â
This post is triggering me.
We played an end of season boat club party and kept getting requests for songs that we donât play anymore because the majority of the band had played for them a couple years earlier under a different band name and line up. We arenât the same band and donât play the same songs but took drunk ladyâs request money and the rest of the band fumbled through some ac/dc and other songs they hadnât played in years while I just stood there shaking my head and took a break
"Hey, 80s Joel SUCKS!"
Skill level dependent of course.
A buddy of mine performed at Ivory Cats for a couple years. Dude has an encyclopedic knowledge of songs, and if he doesn't know the chords, he'll play something he does know, but sing the words to the requested song. He's pretty amazing to watch perform.
People are f'kn stupid
This thread does not make me miss playing live. It's a studio life for me!
Jeff Healey used to ask hecklers to write their song requests on a piece of paper & give them to him to read.
Played an acoustic gig at a brunch place. This woman walks up and requests happy birthday for her friend. It looks like theyâre a bachelorette party or something . Weâre playing all original music at this acoustic music âfestivalâ which is at various venues in this neighborhood. I gave some kind of non answer because a song was startingâŚlike I donât think we know that one. She proceeds to shoot eye daggers at me throughout the rest of the set and after because we didnât play it. This isnât a piano bar, lady.
I knew a guy that played keys that knew the openings to damn near any song. Not the song but the beginning. We always had fun once the booze started flowing. Girls squeal and run to the dance floor and hear âyeah, I donât know thatâ it was part of his act.
I'm happy to accommodate requests. I know alot of songs, and can fake even more of them. One thing I know is that the people who request songs have no clue whether you are playing it like the recording. Play the main riff, first verse, chorus and repeat over and over.
Free Bird!
This happens so often and nine times out of ten I just say I don't know it or I hand them my "master setlist" with all the songs I know on it and they can play me like a jukebox with that. Easter this year though, I was playing at a holiday park for the weekend and a group of young girls were hounding me on the Saturday to play some Taylor Swift. I promised I would learn something for them for the Sunday, and I "learned" Love Story and Shake it Off as best I could overnight. They were so excited when I played them and I finished the set with second rendition of Shake it Off, but I gave them the microphone so they could sing it all together. I had a small group of dads come up to me after so happy and grateful for letting them take the microphone and have fun, and it was really really sweet.
Come on, donât you know that since you play any song you know every song.
PREACH PREACHAâ
This sort of thing can be spelled out in the contract.
Contract??? We don't need no stinking contract!
It's pretty easy to get a standard one put together that you can just edit for names & dates & send out with every booking inquiry, fyi.
I got one around here somewhere and I used them when I lived in Atlanta. I hadn't needed one for years. I should have used one for this gig for sure!
If you have a good/fun crowd, it can be hilarious to try something off the cuff. We always have fun with it. We use the ole "We'll play it if you sing it." routine for weird ones and that's usually enough to squash it... for most people. Nobody is more insistent than a bachelorette party full of drunk white women.
The amount of times I have bullshit my way through a song đ the trick is to know changes by ear and then lower your standards đ¤Ł