New Wave Outpost Forum

Who have you seen do an odd or unexpected cover? A song that they haven't previously released or do in concert on a regular basis.
I saw Peter Murphy do Prince's " Purple Rain." I remember The Replacements doing "Sixteen" by Kiss as well.

Bow Wow Wow opened with The Smiths' [i]I Started Something...[/i] last June. It was an awesome version that they made their own.

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I've seen/heard Patti Smith try to do a cover of Father Figure. She kept forgetting the words!

possibly the strangest for me was The Sisters Of Mercy doing 'Confide in me' by Kylie in 1997... in general, The Sisters and The Mission (or Mr. Hussey solo) as well pull often pull out some strange choices, much appreciated though!

I always liked Numan's version of "On Broadway".

Echo & the Bunnymen lit up the audience on last year's tour with The Door's "Roadhouse Blues". It's instantly recognizable signature guitar lines were such a rush.

[quote]Bow Wow Wow opened with The Smiths' I Started Something... [/quote] Lucky! I would have loved to seen that.

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Not really new wave, but Elton John did A Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On/Twist & Shout/I Saw Her Standing There an an encore in '82. Really did well with them, too.

I saw Al Stewart try to do Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" but it sucked donkey balls.

Simple Minds trying to do "Biko" after really, really getting the crowd going with "New Gold Dream" and "Sanctify Yourself" really didn't go over too well, either.

Of all people, Semisonic used to do some killer covers live. I saw them do Split Enz's "I Got You", Rufus' "Tell Me Something Good" and Prince's "Take Me With You".

They also did "Erotic City" a lot which kicked ass because the drummer would play keyboards with his right hand and drum with his left.

I just found this while searching YouTube:

Berlin - Erotic City [:0]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPFrxaeP-RY

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I have a couple Semisonic B-Sides of "Erotic City" and "The Air That I Breathe". Would have loved to see either of those live.

The Waterboys did a great cover of "Purple Rain", which I can't remember if they played when I saw them (but it's on "The Live Adventures of the Waterboys").

I remember Echo and the Bunnymen doing a couple covers when I saw them in 86 or 87. Pretty sure one of them was "Soul Kitchen".

When I saw Echo & The Bunnymen in 87 or 88, they did "Paint in Black", "Twist & Shout", and—I could've sworn—"Tutti Frutti." It was surreal.

Belle & Sebastian covering Don't Fear the Reaper.

Sinead O'Connor doing the Smiths' The Hand That Rocks The Cradle.

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A couple more, Chris Isaak did Cheap Tricks "I want you to want me",
and Tegan and Sara did Springsteens "Dancing in the Dark".

REM covered Tina Turner's "We Don't Need Another Hero" from the Max III movie soundtrack(I forget the movie title!). This was around 1986, when Michael Stipe was starting to get excessively quirky.