Best cover songs for rock band?

[Three Rivers]

My Adelaide cover band Rule34 is looking to add more songs to our repertoire, but are not sure which songs to add. If you can spare 10 mins to rate the potential songs in our survey we'd really appreciate it. There is a comments box at the end for any other suggestions too (but please, keep it clean and constructive, thank you). Here is the survey link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JB9DLMM

FYI, we are a rock cover band (no original stuff - yet) and our audiences to date have been generally 30-55 year olds, as most of our gigs have been birthday parties (30ths and 40ths) and work social functions. However we'd like to cater for as wide an age group as possible.

Our current repertoire (in no particular order) is:
* Inside - Stiltskin
* Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes
* Teenage Kicks - The Undertones
* Song 2 - Blur
* Scooby Snacks -Fun Lovin' Criminals
* Hands Open - Snow Patrol
* Sympathetic - Seether
* Paranoid - Black Sabbath
* All The Small Things - Blink-182
* For Whom The Bell Tolls – Metallica
* Sex On Fire – Kings Of Leon
* Fly Away – Lenny Kravitz
* Holiday – Green Day
* Summer of ’69 – Bryan Adams
* I Will Follow – Fear Factory
* Never Miss A Beat – Kaiser Chiefs
* Wild Thing – The Troggs
* About A Girl – Nirvana
* (Baby I’ve Got You) On My Mind – Powderfinger
* Turning Japanese – The Vapours
* Blister In The Sun – Violent Femmes

Like all bands, we're limited by our vocalist's range and our musical abilities, but we're open to any suggestions.

P.S. This is my first post in the forums, so hopefully I'm in the right section for this type of thing!

[Music Lover]

I played in a cover band in Sydney for a few years, so I think I know what your band is going through. I guess you want songs that are going to 'go off' and get people singing along and dancing right? From my experience songs like Khe Sanh and Flame Trees will always get audiences singing along. To get people up dancing songs need to be well known AND up-beat. Once they're on the dance floor they'll stay as long as you continue playing songs that are fast paced enough to dance to. As soon as you play a slow song they're gone.

Your list is great and covers a lot of genres, as does your list of existing songs. You seem to lean toward the heavier side (Metallica, Black Sabbath, Fear Factory, Seether, Stiltskin) and have balanced this for your audiences with the always popular tunes (Summer of 69, Wild Thing, Turning Japanese etc). Am I right?

So do you really want to be adding some of those songs in your list just 'cos some people will sing along or dance? If so, add some Cold Chisel like I mentioned above. If not, I'd look at songs in your survey like Joker And The Thief, Are You Gonna Go My Way, Sweet Child Of Mine or any of the Foo Fighters songs. They are heavier and might suit your band better while still appealing to the punters.

Anyway, I've done your survey and hope that (and these comments) are of some help. Good luck, and please let us know the results of your survey.

[Three Rivers]

Thanks for doing the survey Music Lover. Yeah, you're spot on with your assumptions about our band. Generally speaking all five band members prefer the heavier stuff, but we do our best to cater for a wider audience and it seems to be working well so far. Yes we want people dancing and singing along, but most of us are really hoping the bogun rock songs don't finish at the top of the survey, because we don't really want to play Eye Of The Tiger or any Cold Chisel or AC/DC even though we know our audiences might love those songs. We don't have the following to allow us to go with all the heavy stuff, so feel that a good mix is important.

FYI, the survey results so far (not including any responses in the last two days) have the top 5 as:
1. You Really Got Me - The Kinks
2. Sweet Child Of Mine - Guns 'N Roses
3. Should I Stay Or Should I Go - The Clash
4. My Generation - The Who
5. Creep - Radiohead

So your Sweet Child Of Mine suggestion might be a good one - if our band can pull it off. Thanks again for your response. I'll take that back to the band.

[Three Rivers]

Thank you so much to everyone who filled in the song survey for us - we had a fantastic response rate. Our band will go through the results and it will help us decide which songs to learn next. Of course we still need to factor in how hard each song is to play and whether the band actually likes/wants to play the songs, but the survey data will be really useful when we make those decisions. Thanks again to everyone who participated, we really appreciate it.

Out of interest, your favourite songs were:
1. Sweet Child Of Mine - Guns 'N Roses
2. You Really Got Me - The Kinks
3. Should I Stay Or Should I Go - The Clash
4. Creep - Radiohead
5. We Will Rock You - Queen
6. Learn To Fly - Foo Fighters
7. Holy Grail - Hunters & Collectors
8. With Or Without You - U2
9. Don't You Forget About Me - Simple Minds
10. Knockin' On Heaven's Door - Guns 'N Roses/Bob Dylan

Songs you said you DON'T want to hear played live were:
1. Eye of The Tiger - Survivor
2. Evie - The Wrights
3. Jessie's Girl - Rick Springfield
4. My Sharona - The Knack
5. Addicted To Love - Robert Palmer