Which songs go over best with your audiences?

[DawgBone]

From Thursday, we got a good response from Take Five, Chameleon, Watermelon Man and Caravan.

Caravan is just a killer tune with a great melody and rhythm.

How'd the big band gig go? Good I hope!

[gvurrdon]

There's a group I play with locally where the leader doesn't like to play anything out of the real book, with the occasional exception of "Angel Eyes". Instead, we do a variety of pieces, often long two-chord grooves, blues (not always 12 bar) or AABA (but not always 32 bar) forms.
This material appears to be quite popular with the general public, even those who "hate jazz". One strange thing when we play at festivals, weddings etc. with young children present is that they tend to gather at the front of the stage and start dancing.
Here's an example; the dancing children had run for cover as it started raining.

[Bob_Ross]

What goes over best? You guessed it, Girl From Ipanema.

I played bass in The Galaxy Orchestra, the house band onboard the M.S.Crystal Harmony for a three month tour of Mexico and the Caribbean back in the 1990s.
One of my most distinct memories of that gig was that EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. we played "Girl From Ipanema".

Also "New York, New York"

Three months. 90 days. One night off during the entire tour, so call it 89 days.
"Girl From Ipanema" and "New York, New York" every single night for 89 shows in a row.

It does not go over best with me anymore!

[DawgBone]

I played bass in The Galaxy Orchestra, the house band onboard the M.S.Crystal Harmony for a three month tour of Mexico and the Caribbean back in the 1990s.
One of my most distinct memories of that gig was that EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. we played "Girl From Ipanema".

Also "New York, New York"

Three months. 90 days. One night off during the entire tour, so call it 89 days.
"Girl From Ipanema" and "New York, New York" every single night for 89 shows in a row.

It does not go over best with me anymore!

Sounds about how I feel about people playing Little Wing or Cissy Strut at blues jams. Call me a snob but I just say have fun, put my guitar in the case, and bail LOL

[StormyMonday]

Sometimes we play as a duo, others as a quartet with a pretty broad mix of music. Last quartet gig the songs people seemed to dial into were Traffic's "Glad", which is a piano/sax song that we do as a mandolin/electric guitar song (with a bass solo!). It was played just enough back in the day that people recognize it in a positive light but don't expect to hear it. We played an extra hour because it was a great crowd and they didn't want to leave so we had to play stuff we knew but hadn't practiced together. Of those I was surprised that the crowd really dug a jam band kinda take on "Moondance". It's not a song I love playing, in fact I'll usually do it on mando to make it more fun, but they were dancing, women weredancing with us as we were trying to play, so I guess that hit a resonant chord.
A week later we played the same venue but as a guitar duo. It was "No King's Day" and a lot of the crowd had been out at the demonstrations. "For What It's Worth" went over big, as did a solo version of "This Is Not America" I did on my nylon string. My partner had an arrangement of "Fly Me To The Moon" he put together at Berklee in the 80s which I thought was interesting for a mostly under 40 crowd, but I have to say they went crazy over that one. My partner is a good singer and one song they always love that is fun to play is Seals & Crofts "We May Never Pass This Way Again". Another song that when he suggested it I wasnt sure, but turned out to be a winner.