Hoping you guys could chime in on some ideas for really good danceable stuff that is either guitar/bass/drums or can easily be adapted to that format, since I don't have a keyboard player in this project, nor are there really any out there in this neck of the woods that are good enough and would actually want to do it.

What I've got so far:

INXS - "Devil Inside"
Loverboy - "Turn Me Loose"
Prince - "When Doves Cry"
Billy Idol - "Dancing With Myself"
Billy Squire - "The Stroke"
Tommy Tutone - "867-5309"
Queen - "Another One Bites The Dust"
Gary Numan - "Cars"
Duran Duran - "Hungry Like The Wolf"
Rolling Stones - "Start Me Up"
Tom Petty - "Running Down A Dream"
Twisted Sister - "We're Not Gonna Take It"
Flock of Seagulls - "I Ran"
B.O.C. - "Burning For You"
Survivor - "Eye Of The Tiger"
John Mellencamp - "Jack and Diane"
Ratt - "Round And Round"
G'n'R - "Mr. Brownstone"
Motley Crue - "Girls, Girls, Girls"
U2 - "Bullet The Blue Sky"


Feel free to chime in with more, or shoot down what's there.

We're trying to tailor the format, at least initially, to a bar rock crowd, until we gain sufficient notoriety as a specialist group to really go off the deep end.

Maybe throw in some Cars. I guess technically the stuff of theirs I really like is from the late 70's but "Just What I Needed", "Good Times Roll" or "Moving in Stereo" are pretty cool songs that would probably fit.

Jefferson Starship's "Jane" (also actually late 70's) might fit but is maybe a little less danceable than the other stuff?

You have to have the Romantics' "What I Like About You". Another good one is Tommy Shaw's "Girls with Guns" or The Tubes' "Talk To Ya' Later".

The fixx One thing leads to another
robert plant burning down one side
night ranger don't tell me you love me
Foriegner (dunno there are a million)--I acttually like Foriegner and I think that lead guitarist is awesome.

Maybe some Bryan Adams. Also I love that guitarist in Bryan Adams. Very unique style.


Just a few that came to mind

I like that Loverboy song you have. That is a KILLER Marshallesque tone. I dig that guitar player's tone and sensibility.

I hate to say it, but it's the popular tunes that the folks love hearing and dancing to.

-Cinnamon Girl
-Road House Blues
-Sweet Home Alabama
-Knockin' on Heaven's Door
-Move It On Over
-Smoking In The Boys room
-Start Me Up
-Mustang Sally
-Pride And Joy
-The Weight
-Honkey Tonk Woman
-House Of The Rising Sun
-Stormy Monday
-Cocaine
-Johhny B Goode
-Keep Your Hands To Yourself
-Rocky Mountain Way
-Some Kind Of Wonderful

And I could go on... If you need more, let me know.

Of course, this isn't your full set list, but these are the ones that get the crowd up and dancing vs. sitting in their seats and talking to each other while you play in the background.

Shoot. I totally missed where it said 80's...

Ok, well, some of them are still valid...

"Jeopardy" Greg Kihn Band

Umm.... Love you Craig, but you should really read the thread title.

Was actually thinking about that other Greg Kihn tune "The Break Up Song"

so, you look good in spandex and hairspray? Europe, the Nelson Twins?

anyway... how about Jenny Jenny, Breakdown, Little Red Corvette, I Knew The Bride, I'm The Man, Mystery Dance, Crawling From the Wreckage, American Girl, Here Comes My Baby, Pink Cadillac, Stick To Me, Watching the Detectives, The Reflex, Downtown Train, The Trouble Boys..... I could go on for hours, but the whole Joe Jackson/Nick Lowe/Dave Edmonds\Rockpile\Elvis Costello\Graham Parker\Tom Petty/the Blasters thing works really well. Been there, done that.

Some great suggestions above!

Yeah, just about any Cars songs that you can think of, no matter if released in the late '70s or in the '80s, for sure! "My Best Friend's Girl", "Shake It Up", "Candy-O"

INXS, "What You Need", "New Sensation"

Van Halen, "Panama", "Unchained"

Prince, "Kiss", "Raspberry Beret"

The following may or may not be something you could pull off with a guitar/bass/drums line-up (but perhaps no harder to than some of the songs you already listed):

Talking Heads, "Burning Down The House" "Swamp", "Making Flippy Floppy", "What A Day That Was", "Life During Wartime"

Psychedelic Furs, "Pretty In Pink"

Def Leppard, "Rock of Ages", "Foolin'", "Photograph", "Animal", "Let It Go"

Ozzy, "Crazy Train", "I Don't Know", "Over The Mountain"

Yeah that's a good one. It can easily be done without keys. One of the band's I was in back in college did it with guitars, bass & drums.

Can't forget the Stray Cats either! Rock This Town, Stray Cat Strut, etc...

My quuestions are:

1) Do you want to play all danceable Rock?
2) What do the bars in your area want?

You won't make any money (however little) in this town unless you're playing for the people and getting them to dance.


Jack & Diane I don't see anybody dancing to. I would substitute Hurts So Good.

For a good slow dance tune (and you will need a few), play Purple Rain.

Not sure about Bullet the Blue Sky for a dance tune.

Another couple to consider...(Romantics) That's What I Like About You (<< a MUST PLAY tune) and Talking In Your Sleep.

The answer to your questions:

We pretty much want to stick to danceable stuff. Nothing worse than pulling out a song that clears the floor, because it takes a while to get them back up there.

I was thinking of "Bullet" having that slinky Led-Zeppelin-esque groove that would be more of a continuation piece (once they're already up there), you know, get a little hip-to-hip action happening.

INXS - "Devil Inside" - possibly, we do New Sensation and it goes over well, but I play Sax Solo
Loverboy - "Turn Me Loose" - A lot of keys in that one, Working for the Weekend is better
Prince - "When Doves Cry" - Have you listened to that? Lot's of Keys, NO BASS GUITAR. Otherwise, yeah it'd be great
Billy Idol - "Dancing With Myself" - YEP
Billy Squire - "The Stroke" - YEP
Tommy Tutone - "867-5309" - YEP
Queen - "Another One Bites The Dust" - YEP
Gary Numan - "Cars" - Technically 70s (seriously, look it up), and lots of keys
Duran Duran - "Hungry Like The Wolf" - If you can pull if off well without keys
Rolling Stones - "Start Me Up" - I would think, haven't tried any Stones
Tom Petty - "Running Down A Dream" - Again, I would think this would be good
Twisted Sister - "We're Not Gonna Take It" - We tried this for a while, didn't go as well as I expected, but OK
Flock of Seagulls - "I Ran" - Nope, goes over like a lead balloon
B.O.C. - "Burning For You" - Don't know
Survivor - "Eye Of The Tiger" - The intro would go over great, then they'd lose interest at Verse 1
John Mellencamp - "Jack and Diane" - YEP
Ratt - "Round And Round" - I wanted to try this but got vetoed
G'n'R - "Mr. Brownstone" - Do "Sweet Child" or "Paradise City" instead
Motley Crue - "Girls, Girls, Girls" - YEP
U2 - "Bullet The Blue Sky" - Seriously Doubt it

Some songs from our songlist that you can do without keys that I can verify go over well:

Billy Idol - Dancing With Myself
Bon Jovi - You Give Love A Bad Name
Bryan Adams - Summer Of 69
Def Leppard - Pour Some Sugar On Me
George Michael - Faith
Georgia Satellites - Keep Your Hands To Yourself
Guns Roses - Sweet Child Of Mine
INXS - New Sensation
John Cougar Mellencamp - Hurt So Good
John Cougar Mellencamp - Jack & Dianne
John Cougar Mellencamp - R.O.C.K in the USA
Journey - Any Way You Want It
Poison - Talk Dirty To Me
Poison - Nothin' But A Good Time
Queen - Another One Bites The Dust
Rick Springfield - Jessie's Girl
The Knack - My Sharona
The Outfield - Your Love
The Romantics - What I Like About You
The Violent Femmes - Blister In The Sun
Tommy Tutone - 867-5309/Jenny

I pulled out any that are female lead vocal or keyboard intensive. Some of these are already in your list... I was too lazy to go through and pull them out... sorry.

You can see our entire songlist HERE and if you have any specific questions about any you can PM me, but most of them go over pretty well.

There's an 80's Hair Band in town that's more guitar oriented and pretty successful called Metal Studz. Unfortunately I don't think they have their songlist on there, but maybe they'll send it to you if you contact them through the web site.

No Z.Z. Top?

Anyway this might help-

http://digitaldreamdoor.nutsie.com/pages/best_songs80s.html

Or this:

http://digitaldreamdoor.nutsie.com/pages/best_artists80pop.html

Also, how about some Robert Palmer, solo or with The Power Station. We used to do his version of `Didn`t mean to turn you on`, it`s got keys but the whole mix is pretty minimal, should work fine with guitar.

`So Into You`, ARS-I think that`s 80s.

Dan - much obliged for your input. I knew you'd have some good insights about what flies and what doesn't. St Louis isn't that dramatically different from the VA Beach/Tidewater area (other than the whole landlocked thing...)

Some of the extremely heavy synth stuff I had in my list I figured would get the Griff special re-arrangement treatment - I've actually done "When Doves Cry" in a guitar/bass/no boards setting and it translates really well.

Skip - I've been parsing all the charts and (particularly) polls I could get my hands on. The Robert Palmer suggestion is good stuff, though, can't believe I didn't think of "Simply Irresistable" - yeah, there's horns, but that guitar line is strong enough to stand on its own, without them AFAIC.

Ya I agree.
I just heard that first single by White Zombie-that would get anyone with a pulse up and moving but it`s late, don`t have time to check if it`s 80s.

Grif, I would have pegged you as doing '80s hair band way before doing something like this project. Now I feel bad for pidgeon-holing you.

Looking over the '80s section of our song list I notice that most of what we cover has female vocals. We tried "Personal Jesus" (Depeche Mode) for a short time, but maybe "Friday I'm in Love" (The Cure) would be a better all-around crowd pleaser while still reaching that niche audience. We're going to give "Red Red Wine" (UB40) a shot at our next show. The only other thing I have to offer from our current set list is "The One I Love" (REM).

Used to do `Need You Tonight`-even with keys the problem with that one is the synth percussion, without that it doesn`t move like a dance song.

Handle With Care(Wilburys)

The One I Love(REM) was a great suggestion.

And We Danced & All You Zombies(The Hooters)

The Light In Your Eyes(The Subdudes)

Bang On The Drum All Day(Todd Rundgren-yeah a lot of keys, but would translate to guitar pretty well, I think)

Party Town(Glenn Frey)

All She Wants to Do Is Dance(Don Henley)

Wrap It Up and Tough Enough (Fab T-birds)

Life Is A Highway(Tom Cochran)

Diz-Knee Land(Dada)

Dada = 1992, Cochran = 1991, otherwise good suggestions Pick.

I did The One I Love(REM) back in the early 90's. It went OK, but it always seemed like kind of a downer - not really one the folks will dance to or anything. I did And We Danced (The Hooters) in the early 2000's and it went over fairly well.

Party Town(Glenn Frey) - never tried this, but I always wondered about "The Heat is On".

All She Wants to Do Is Dance(Don Henley) - May be good, has lots of keys, though. I did Boys of Summer in my last band and it was OK.

Remember, the songs YOU remember from the 80's are not necessarily the ones bar-goers will remember. Especially if you're shooting for the early 20-somethings. The majority of our crowd is 21-28 yr old girls - so pick stuff they will know, like, and dance to, and you'll be a hit. Actually, now that I think about it, don't ask us for songs, hit your nearest college campus and ask the girls what they like from the 80's.

We do both Hands To Yourself and Blister. Both usually go over very well. At the very least Hands To Yourself gets people to tap their feet if they don't get up and dance. The opening notes of Blister will usually motivate at least one person to yell out a "WOOO!" and then gets several ladies on the dance floor.

I wouldn't be afraid of doing some songs that are not guitar oriented as long as you can work on them and work out some guitar parts. Not always easy but if you can pull it off it is something people are likely to remember. Newman's Cars is a good example. It actually works well as a guitar song. Fear Factory did a cover that was guitar driven that sounds pretty good.

Some current band did a cover of Boys of Summer so that may get recognized. Also, Distrubed has done a couple of 80's songs (Shout & Land of Confusion)

Think that was The Ataris that did B.o.S.
Alien Ant Farm`s cover of `Smooth Criminal` worked well too.

A couple of tunes just occurred to me. Love is Like a Rock or Ah Leah, both by Donnie Iris. They should be danceable and both have very "sing-a-long" type choruses.

Mountain of Love, Johnny Rivers
My Little Runaway, Del Shannon
I'm In Love Again, Fats Domino
Johnny B. Goode, Chuck Berry
Jailhouse Rock, Elvis Presley
Brown Sugar and/or Satisfaction, Rolling Stones
Magic Carpet Ride, Steppenwolf
Sunshine of Your Love, Cream
Tutti Fruitti, Little Richard
Sleep Walk,

some oldies always works and gets the old dudes "shaken all over"...

Except none of these were recorded in the 80's, which is the point of the thread.

Don't feel bad Larryz. I did the same thing...