Helps us think of engaging Band Activities!

January 7, 2009 1:19 PM

I'm looking for games and/or activities a cover band can do to actively participate with the audience.

My friend's cover band is performing this weekend. Once again, I'll be the tech guy. Since we're just a cover band and don't do anything really serious, we're looking for fun, engaging activities that we can do with audience members that'll keep everyone having fun.

We're doing this to raise money for a medical related charity in Haiti, so anything that may solicit donations is also a big plus.

Things we've done in the past:

1) Cowbell contest. Whoever could throw down hardest on the cowbell could come on stage and play for Don't Fear the Reaper.

2) Beat boxing contest. This we did at a student orientation, and was really impromptu, but it was a lot of fun.

Idea's we've thought about this time (to raise money):

1) Whipped cream pie in the face. Auction of a whipped cream pie to stuff in the face of our lead singer.

2) Wet T-shirt contest: We sell cups of water for $1, which purchasers then get to pour over band members heads. The band member who's the wettest at the end "wins".

3) Band Member Date Auction: Standard date auction.

Most audience members will be our friends and their friends of friends (not a lot of randoms), which is why these ideas (kinda?) work. Still, I'd like to solicit the hive mind for other clever ideas that they've seen or heard of.

posted by unexpected to media & arts (11 comments total)

Stump the band.
posted by fixedgear at 1:22 PM on January 7

I went to a U2-cover-band concert that had an audience-wide drawing -- people dropped their names into a "Joshua-Tree-era" cowboy hat, one of the names was pulled out, and that person got to come up and sing lead on "Pride In The Name Of Love" with the rest of the band.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:22 PM on January 7

Does the band know a lot of songs? Belle & Sebastian, of all bands, has a habit of pulling a random person out of the crowd, and playing whatever they want to sing.
posted by yellowbinder at 1:30 PM on January 7

A cover band I saw once did a really fun thing that got the whole audience participating and laughing - they did a medley in the middle of their set of songs sung on old sitcoms/TV shows and encouraged everyone to sing along. Sometimes we were laughing so hard it was hard to sing.

By way of explanation, some of the tunes they included were "The Twitch" from The Flintstones ("There's a town I know where the hipsters go called Bedrock, twitch twitch..."), "Girl" as sung by Davy Jones on The Brady Bunch, "Neither a Borrower nor a Lender Be" as performed by the cast of Gilligan's Island, and even "Albania...you border on the Adriatic..." as sung by Coach on Cheers.
posted by Oriole Adams at 1:36 PM on January 7

I saw Christine Lavin once and she asked a guy in the audience a bunch of questions (Name, town he's from, interests, etc) Immediately after intermission she performed a song she wrote about him during the intermission.
posted by bondcliff at 1:37 PM on January 7

What about the TMBG classic "Spin the Dial"? They would bring a radio on stage and start tuning it to find a song they would play. Sometimes they would combine multiple songs into one or mash them up in different ways... Here's a wiki article about it.
posted by lucidreamstate at 2:00 PM on January 7

Doing songs where the audience can sing/scream along is always good.
posted by radioamy at 3:18 PM on January 7

Love the audience raffle idea above. If the winner didn't want to come on stage, let them pick what song the band will play next or to close the show (have a list of song options available).
posted by KAS at 3:20 PM on January 7

Every year, Yo La Tengo does a fundraiser for WFMU where people who donate get to pick the next song for them to play. It has the some pretty funny results, when all they know is the intro, a guitar solo or the chorus. It might be good for a charity event to try, but be prepared to stretch your musical chops.
posted by rabbitsnake at 3:48 PM on January 7

Also, this might be fun to try. Setup Rock Band projected behind the band with audience members playing the same song as the band is playing.
posted by rabbitsnake at 3:49 PM on January 7

the hokey pokey
posted by pianomover at 1:14 AM on January 8