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TOP tunes that are Disasters on gigs.

17K views 79 replies 52 participants last post by  Souportwenty 
#1 ·
More specifically the top list of tunes that nobody wants to play at the rehearsal because they say everybody knows that... However apparently THEY dont!!!!

Sex Machine --- getting out of the bridge....ending the song...and in EXTREMELY embarrassing situations going to the bridge.

One hilarious and recent occurance,the singer saying "lets hit it and quit it" and the band went the bridge....ok well give them a break,they were German!!

Wave-- getting back to the top after the vamp...is the vamp 2 bars or 4... Or both!!

Oye Como Va- just ALWAYS seems to suck!!!

C jam blues - what Key is it in??!!!! This is not a joke folks...yet the fact that when you try to make sure everybody treats it as a joke,and then completely screws it up is even worse!!!


These are the absolute top of the list... Some more are bound to come to me but help me out folks


Of course the other funny thing is people who call Canteloupe island and play Watermelon Man...
 
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#7 ·
+100. One of the most overplayed tunes out there.
 
#21 ·
I play bari in a Tower Of Power tribute band, and when I first saw that lick, I thought, "ya that's hard." Then I tried to play it, and thought, "JEEZ, I'm gonna get fired from this band on the first day." It's the second riff that's the hardest. If you can get past that, you've won. Luckily, I was able to shed it enough to learn it well, and it comes out smooth. Gotta love TOP. Those horn parts are so fun to play.
 
#6 ·
The last two bars of Corcovado (aka Quiet Night, Quiet Stars)
The bridge of Well you Needn't (G or Db?)
People that don't understand that the first chord of Autumn Leaves is not the key of the tune

Happy B****y Birthday too.
 
#22 ·
Yeah, Well You Needn't is really frustrating in that regard. I love to play it, but am afraid to call it at a jam session. Autumn Leaves is usually played not in the key in which it is written, but in Real Book key, which is taken from early Miles, no? What is the problem with the last two bars of Corvocado? I have noticed that some play it differently, but not sure what is happening there.
 
#13 ·
how the heck did i overlook Happy Birthday!!!!

to me hearing a jazz band play St. Thomas is about as exciting as hearing them attempt HB

however non jazz bands always rock it out!!!
 
#16 ·
Song for my Father. Someone always forgets that it's AAB instead of AABA.
Girl from Ipanema- THE BRIDGE!

There are two Van Morrison tunes- Moondance and Into the Mystic.
 
#19 ·
Oh sure, song for my father and little sunflower are constant cockups... As well any tune that has the one chord for the last two bars of the tune...like watermelon man or the chicken.... Inevitably the 4 chord comes on bar three....
 
#38 ·
What can go wrong with Little Sunflower? I like that song and have been playing it at home. We're going to play it on Sunday in practice for the first time. Is there something I should know that isn't obvious?

As far as The Chicken, t's about getting those repeated riffs tight, especially the decrescendo during the song and not zoning out during the solos aand missing the cue to play it. Plus repeating it the right number of times at the end and then cut it off cold. We play it almost every week.

But I wouldn't want to have to play Birdland. I don't even like to listen to it---it goes on endlessly. Just looking at the chart and all those repeats gives me a phobic attack.

As to The Boredom From Ipanema, if I never heard it again or had to play it again it would be too soon. It's especially annoying here because you get singers who like to sing it in Portuguese because they have pretensions of being authentic. On the other hand, better that they butcher a language I don't speak than forcing me to keep my mouth shut and pretend that all that mispronounced English is the way the lyrics should go.

Right now my pet peeve is "I Will Survive" where the singer in the Thursday combo sings, " I should have looked the door and thrown awhy the Cay." I wince every time she does it.

We also have been doing Sweet Home Alabama, and iit might be the one time I'm actually glad the guitarist is too loud during it because he drowns out her mispronunciations in every line. I like playing the horn parts and singing the chorus with everyone, but I had to put my foot down on them all singing "Allah Bhama" and insisted they pronounce it correctly. Talk about shooting the messenger, Instead of thanking me they make jokes about my pronunciation of it. The Spanish have such a long history of being terrible at English that they're actually proud of it. Kind of the linguistic version of the Stockholm syndrome.

And will someone please explain this love affair with Bossa Novacaine to me? That stuff just about anesthestises me when I have to play it, which is all the time lately in this other group. They love it here and you always get stuck playing Manha del Carnaval and some real unknowns that were on the album "Luis Bonfa's Worst Non-Hits". They're not even in the Colorado Cookbook or Jazz Ltd. which has a zillion songs best left to rot in peace. Why don't those people who want to play that stuff--wannabe singers and mellow guitarists--just smoke some more weed, drink a glass of sangria, kick back in a hammock and let the rest of us play some real jazz?
 
#23 ·
I enjoy playing Wild Nights because it's a rockin' tune, but I would hate any band that attempted Into The Mystic and couldn't pull it off with Van's feel and timing. It's got a sacred, poetic feel and if you don't do it justice and get that feeling just right, it sounds awful. I heard a band do it on an audition CD and I couldn't believe that they put it on there. If they couldn't hear how bad it sounded, then they couldn't possibly be any good as a band. But if you can get the pulse and push of that song going, and the vocalist can drive it and carry it -- "I wanna rock your gypsy soul, just like way back in the days of old, and together we will flow, into the Mystic" -- it can be killer. But you have to go for broke on that song. You can't do it half way or it sucks big time.

My long-standing band used to refuse to play Mustang Sally. Then at a recent gig we did it as a closer because the really attractive (though drunk) chick kept asking for it and we didn't care anymore. Of course it was a huge dance floor hit. Oh well.

I agree with Happy ****ing Birthday. If they haven't actually practiced that tune and are really solid with where the chord changes are, most bands who try to wing it screw it up. That's why most bands play the Beatles tune -- because they actually learned it and know how it goes, rather than assuming they can play it and never bothering to figure out how it works.
 
#24 ·
tunes that nobody wants to play at the rehearsal because they say everybody knows that... However apparently THEY dont!!!!
This happens with my new band. It's blues/rock. Somebody calls a tune and somebody else says we know that, we don't need to rehearse it. But then someone (usually me) insists that we run through it and of course, if you know 100's of blues, R&B, and rock tunes, you know that each tune has it's own little thing that makes it unique, like an extra 2 bars at the end of the verse or a simple lick in the intro or staying on the I chord for 8 bars or changing to the IV chord a half bar early or a signature lick that starts on the "and" of 3 and so forth and so on. So of course it turns out that we don't know that tune or know the same version of the tune and we end up having to rehearse it. Whenever somebody starts to say, "We know that one, we don't need to rehearse ...," I'm fairly certain that we DO need to rehearse it.
 
#31 ·
People screw up night in tunesia 's form all the time,but thinking the form is AAB?? Thats a new one for me!!
 
#34 ·
Yes key,a pet peeve of mine.. Actually i was just listening to a great Sonny Rollins record from his early period,was a favorite record of mine that i hadntlistened to for a very long time...he totally screws up the trading!!!
 
#53 ·
Man, it bugs me when something like that happens. Another one where this can happen is 'Work Song', where the band goes to a 12 bar blues after playing the head. I think it might be because they learned it from the Paul Butterfield version. Always go back to the original when learning a tune!

I just discovered this thread. What it seems to come down to is any tune the band doesn't know well will be a disaster. It's (kinda) ok at a jam session where you can expect some sloppiness, but not with a working band.
 
#36 ·
Impressions / So What
It's just two chords, but in the solos, lots of people loose their place and play Dm over Ebm or Ebm over Dm. No sense of form. It sucks.
 
#46 ·
"Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" - I could never do anything interesting with this tune and the band always sounded like kids playing it.
I play that one on keyboard. It's a groove tune, not a good one for going outside or flights of fancy improvisation. The original version has Joe Zawinul soloing on his own tune and the Adderleys just play the melody horn lines and don't solo. Joe's solo is very basic and soulful and follows the melodic line closely. (This from a guy who could go way outside.) The secret to this tune is keep it simple. If the band locks into the groove and just digs in, they won't sound like kids. They'll sound like musicians having a groovy time. :)
 
#47 ·
According to yesterday's gig, today's recording session (big band setting) and the following conversations, I'd say "In the mood" (at least the original arrangement). Nobody wants to rehearse it because everybody knows it but nobody plays it the same way... Ends up in a sloppy thing that the audience (barely) recognizes but that sounds nothing like the original.
 
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