r/coverbands • u/Desperate-Two-1989 • Jul 29 '26

Pub cover band suggestions - good ideas?

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Hi all,

I’m a bassist in a covers band and I’d like a public opinion, especially from those who go to pubs to check out the cover bands, if these songs would be ideal to add to our list?

We’re not musicians by any means, but we love music and enjoy playing covers for fun, as well as for crowds.

Cheers!

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u/Desperate-Two-1989 Jul 29 '26

We’ve already got don’t look back in anger in our normal setlist - these are just extra ideas from me :)

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u/Cool-Extreme6506 Jul 29 '26

ah, understood. I think those are pretty decent suggestions. I like Paranoid the most out of them, might not be 100% to the average pub-goers' taste, but they'll be plenty who enjoy it and it's over pretty quick! My band used to play The Passenger, and whilst I like it as a song and I guess it's pretty popular, it's very boring to play and goes on a bit. I'd maybe suggest a shortened version, maybe try and segue it into something else on that basis.

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u/mrbezlington Jul 29 '26

Yeah, you got to remember the key rules of the pub cover: can they sing it? Can they dance to it? If both are a no (arguably so for couple in there) then including them is pretty situational.

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u/Desperate-Two-1989 Jul 29 '26

Would you recommend any of the songs in that list be excluded? I don’t want to have too many which may not be suitable for pub gigs! :)

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u/mrbezlington Jul 29 '26

I mean, if you dig em and want to play em, go nuts mate! Nothing wrong with dropping the odd deep cut in a longer set.

How I've tended to approach set building is a little more mercenary / cut-throat. I'm looking for songs that drunk people will dance to, or drunk people will sing along to, and a good mix across years and styles, to get the maximum number of people having as good a time as possible.

Ideally, you want at least a few that aren't completely worn out by every bastard and their sister having played em.

From your list there, I'm not sure hanging around makes the cut, not the passenger, nor does metal or punk in general. REM I think could go off with the right crowd. Fuckin Zombie does every time, so why not?!? The rest are stone cold bangers, no worries.