Top ten list of Must Know Cover Songs

[broken_fusion]

I'm looking to get back in a band in the near future. Just a cover band for some fun and maybe some bar gigs. Thing is I know zero cover songs. I have been playing original music and practicing scales,licks and otherwise shredding. I know some familiar riffs but no songs top to bottom anymore. What would be your top ten of must know cover tunes to learn? you know that familiar scene when you get together with some guys or go to an audition and they're like,well what do you want to play?Thanks.

[RacerX]

War Pigs
Sacred Reich version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=padRlm7j-PM

[MartinBarre]

AC/DC - Back In Black
Guns N Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine
Led Zep - Good Times Bad Times and/or Whole Lotta Love
Metallica - Enter Sandman
Motorhead - Ace of Spades
Iron Maiden - The Trooper and/or Wrathchild

[broken_fusion]

AC/DC - Back In Black
Guns N Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine
Led Zep - Good Times Bad Times and/or Whole Lotta Love
Metallica - Enter Sandman
Motorhead - Ace of Spades
Iron Maiden - The Trooper and/or Wrathchild

whole lotta love is cool... Until you get the middle.... that reminds me I used to play livin,lovin maid in another band. I should brush up on that.

[Robert Hendrix]

whole lotta love is cool... Until you get the middle.... that reminds me I used to play livin,lovin maid in another band. I should brush up on that.

Dude, The middle is the best part. The rest is pretty boring..

Really depends on what you're going for but a few songs I've played to "break the ice" are
Heartbreaker - Led Zep
Rock Me - Great White
Saturday Night Special - Armored Saint Version
Mary Janes Last Dance - Don't laugh, it's one of the few songs I can sing
Rocky Mountain Way - Joe Walsh
Sweet Emotion - Aerosmith
Cumbersome - 7 Mary 3 (a little heavier usually though)
Rockin in the free world
Mississippi Queen

[atomic charvel guy]

1-Custard Pie-Zeppelin
2-Suffragette City-David Bowie
3-Brown Sugar-the Stones
4-Walk Away-the James Gang
5-Fire-Jimi Hendrix
6-Walk This Way-Aerosmith
7-Dance the Night Away-Van halen
8-Cold Gin-Kiss
9-Man in the box-Alice in Chains
10-Suck My Kiss- Chili Peppers

[OnlineStageGear]

People at bars want to hear what's popular. It's easy to find that out. Just turn on the radio and tune it to whatever style you want to play. They basicly rotate the same 40 songs or so and that's basicly what you want to play. Do that and you will be ok. Play "B" side BS nobody knows and you will be playing for the bartender.

Matt

[Shawn Lutz]

it depends on the market and what kinsda band your trying to be. Cover songs doesnt mean the geezer metal folks are listing It could be top 40. I'd rather have a bullet to the head than play Nickleback covers

If classic metal is what your after here's a few that I used to play in a cover band before goin all original, dunno what kinda crowd pleasers the'd be today however as I fall in the geezer metal club

Holy Diver - Dio
Crazy Train - Ozzy
Shapes of Thing - Gary Moore
Iron Man - Sabbath
Alone Again - Dokken
The Trooper - Maiden
Living after Midnight - Judas Priest
Mr. Crowley - Ozzy
Last in Line - Dio
Flight of Icarus - Maiden
War Pigs - Sabbath

[hippietim]

Holy Diver - Dio
Crazy Train - Ozzy
Shapes of Thing - Gary Moore
Iron Man - Sabbath
Alone Again - Dokken
The Trooper - Maiden
Living after Midnight - Judas Priest
Mr. Crowley - Ozzy
Last in Line - Dio
Flight of Icarus - Maiden
War Pigs - Sabbath

I played every single one of those songs in my band back in the 80's.

I LOVED playing Shapes of Things!!

[Axewielder]

Holy Diver - Dio
Crazy Train - Ozzy
Shapes of Thing - Gary Moore
Iron Man - Sabbath
Alone Again - Dokken
The Trooper - Maiden
Living after Midnight - Judas Priest
Mr. Crowley - Ozzy
Last in Line - Dio
Flight of Icarus - Maiden
War Pigs - Sabbath

Your geezer metal works for me!

[Newc]

Like Shawn said, depends on the style you're doing.

Can't go wrong with Cat Scratch Fever, though. We used to do that one.

Since we had a mixed bag of mostly-redneck bar crowds, we'd do:

-Voodoo Chile
-Cat Scratch Fever
-Man In The Box
-Ain't Talkin Bout Love
-Sweet Home Alabama
-Train, Train (I think it was Warrant's version - may God have mercy on my soul for playing Warrant )
-Hair Of The Dog
-Sweet Leaf or Paranoid (we'd swap them up)
-Cocaine ("Ok, up next, we're gonna do cocaine!" )
-Wonderful Tonight
-Midnight Rider
-Knocking On Heaven's Dawaw (G-n-R version )
-Keep Your hands To Yourself (Georgia Satellites) - THAT ONE went over like free beer and blowjobs.

and a bunch of originals.

I always wanted to do some Deep Purple - Smoke On The Water, Space Truckin, Highway Star, etc

It doesn't hurt to know Freebird. You don't HAVE to play it, but as long as you can do most of the solo, it's a good filler to throw in on a heavy improv blues jam

[Ben...]

Holy Diver - Dio
Crazy Train - Ozzy
Shapes of Thing - Gary Moore
Iron Man - Sabbath
Alone Again - Dokken
The Trooper - Maiden
Living after Midnight - Judas Priest
Mr. Crowley - Ozzy
Last in Line - Dio
Flight of Icarus - Maiden
War Pigs - Sabbath

Now that's my kind of cover list.

[MikeStrat]

Matt is right. I grew up playing all the 80's stuff but there is very little market for now. It all depends if you want to be a popular band or play for the two dudes in the back with their arms crossed.

We play some 80's stuff in my band now but it's the Poison type songs that the girls like.

[MartinBarre]

whole lotta love is cool... Until you get the middle.... that reminds me I used to play livin,lovin maid in another band. I should brush up on that.

You're doing a cover - just skip the whole middle section and jump to the solo. :idea:

[Axewielder]

If you are going to do geezer rock covers, you must do "Screaming in the Night"...in full "Conan the Barbarian" attire!

As a side note, someone did a mashup of Conan with the full version of SITN on YouTube. VERY cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPjGumpyPNw