Should you/Do you do requests?

[Happy Jack]

I've had a few requests from the audience, but I usually play the song despite that ...

[Dr.Dave]

[quote name='gafbass02' timestamp='1386000534' post='2294469']
Because of the nature of my band ( we play rocked versions of pop classics, think green day playing Bonnie Tyler/Katy Perry and you're about there)
[/quote] You sound like my shower. The latest is I managed to Take some Primal Scream and turn it into the Village People's 'Go West ' halfway through ! Shame you're so far away - I'd be straight there with the notepad out to see what I could steal !

[MarkW]

There's a large bloke who regularly turns up to our gigs, gets hammered immediately and then spends the rest of the night standing at the back yelling 'GIVE US SOME SLADE!' between every song. Very irritating. At a gig over the weekend our guitarist came closer than he's ever come in 40 years as a pro to fisticuffs with a member of the audience, who needled him relentlessly about The Proclaimers.

Usually though, we have a handy and honest response to audience requests: "Sorry mate - the bass player doesn't know it."

[KevB]

I think if we had someone who regularly turned up to gigs who requested a particular band or song and wasn't obnoxious about it and it fitted in the set we'd seriously look into accommodating them but in general we don't do requests unless its something we really know well and most of those are already in the set. I have some admiration for those bands with such a massive back catalog that can pull off unexpected stuff that clearly wouldn't have been in their regular set to a high standard. It's a thin line though, you do it for one person and they all expect it and before you know where you are the lunatics have taken over the asylum. Sadly I've got to the age and ignored chart stuff for so long now that I've occasionally been approached with 'Do you know anything by...' and I have absolutely no knowledge of the act in question at all!

Edited December 4, 2013 by KevB

[Count Bassy]

[quote name='FinnDave' timestamp='1385896040' post='2293196']
We had a request for a Doors song (forget which one) a week or two ago, told him we didn't do requests. He then said 'But I wanted to buy the band a drink', so we changed our principles and gave him Roadhouse Blues (which was on the set list anyway). Principles are all very well, but a simple bribe usually overrules them!
[/quote]
Reminds me of the Groucho Marks thing, something along the lines of:
"These are my principles. If you don't like them don't worry, I have others"

Sadly, to my ear, the Doors' version of Roadhouse Blues is about the worst there is, even though they wrote it.
The Jeff Healey version is one of my favourites (and in our current set list)

Edited December 4, 2013 by Count Bassy

[shizznit]

We are a soul band, but that doesn't stop some folks asking us to play Sex On Fire, I Predict A Riot...songs like that. One guy threatened to stab me in the eye if we didn't play some Elvis.

If the requested song is in our back catalogue, but not necessarily on our set list for that evening we might play it if asked politely. Beyond that, we will play Happy Birthday when asked (always keep that one in your back pocket).

A few songs that have been included into out set have been from punters requests at times when we thought "Why don't we play that song? It's awesome!".