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I've played in both and enjoyed them for different reasons. These days my band is predominantly covers but we chuck a couple of our own in now and then depending on the gig/crowd etc.
I'm not sure if it's less rewarding playing covers though, depends how good/bad your band is!
Ps
I love playing Sex On Fire! I find playing the same songs every week can get boring if you don't mix it up but having a dance floor absolutely packed with people singing their heads off is great fun.
That also applies to the song in general - some songs kind of need to be played fairly close to the record (there's not an awful lot you can do with the likes of Sex on Fire and Chelsea Dagger other than to stretch them out for more singalongability, for exmaple) and others can be played about with a lot more.
For my own band, what really makes the difference is the instrumentation - By which I mean Sex On Fire, being a two guitar song from a two guitar band, is pretty close to the original, whereas something like Come On Eileen, with its banjo/ fiddle malarky, or Superstition, with its clavinet or whateveryermacallit, both deviate somewhat from the original in sound, at least, if not in structure.
I have just had to learn Chris Martin's piano intro part to the latest live version of Yellow for a wedding that's coming up. I'm no Richard Clayderman, this could get messy...
As if the Beatles would have had to have played stuff like Strawberry Fields Forever with the same fidelity as the tribute bands do!
*just for an example...
Taking it too far, IMO.
Mind, I know someone else who also plays in a tribute band and doesn't make the effort to dress up and/ or look like the person in question, and I think that's a bit odd too, it's all a question of balance, innit.
And I say to bands, if your singer has to change the vocal line because he can't hit the high notes, drop the song or play it in a different key. I saw a band play JJF and the singer sang a completely different vocal line and my wife looked at me very qiizzically wanting to know what was wrong. Its not called 'making it you own' its called desecration to anyone who knows it and loves it.
Very true. A guitarist who plays All Right Now solo different to the original deserves to get booed. SImilarly Hotel California. But Some songs the solo can be improvised/extended/completely fucked up and no-one would care. How many guitarists here actually play the Chuck Berry intro to Johnny B Goode verbatim?. I've not seen a covers band do it mainly becuase its quite tricky. Its a very fine line between playing 'your version' and being too lazy to work it out/learn it. If you do 'your version' it has to be as good as otherwise its just laziness IMO.
Similarly if you are in a covers band you owe it to your audience to change your guitar sound during your set and to suit the number. Making everything sound the same is very boring for the audience.
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