Lomitus

I do agree with most of what you have said. Although I would like to share a strange personal experience that I encountered while playing 5 years in a classic rock cover band, as the house band for a local club here in Ft Lauderdale.

We played every Saturday night, 4 sets, about 10 songs per set. When we first started this gig we definitely worked at making these "classic rock" tunes our own. We also wanted our audience to say "wow" Chain Reaction was great. Didn't you love the way they did Pride And Joy, or that was a great version of American Band or Honky Tonk Women. Sadly...the single most common feedback that we received was kinda like this..."you guy's were great but since you cover "classics" we would prefer that you play them the way we know and love them.

At first we ignored this concept, but one night, sitting with my wife watching another cover band play Ramblin Man....which they nailed note for note...she turned to me and said "that's what the people want to hear" they have grown up with this music and they know every lead and every note. They look forward to the upcoming leads and they expect them to be played the way they know them. It's fine musically when you "stylize" the song, but everyone really prefers to hear it the way they know it. This turned out to be very true. We started playing our sets just the way they were written, and the reactions were amazing.

I think it's great to express "your" style, and as guitarists we all have our own style of playing....but if a band does Pride And Joy, and the guitarist doesn't play it note for note, the audience usually thinks that he couldn't play it correctly and just did the best he could with it. I also kinda agree with this. We expect to hear the lead that we are familiar with.

IMO if we want people to experience our own style, we should do our own songs. When we listen to concert pianists play, they play the "Classics" exactly the way they were written. As a "Cover" band we tried to cover the song as closely as possible to the original and this was really well accepted.

Thanks
Noodles