The Conveyor Belt-ers

Dear reader,

Do you think bands that are hired to play music at "college bars" are given a strict lineup of songs they MUST play? Example:

Journey - Don't Stop Believing
Neil Diamond - Sweet Caroline
Jet - Are You Gonna Be My Girl
Outfield - Your Love
Garth Brooks - Friends in Low Places
Oasis - Wonderwall
Def Leppard - Pour Some Sugar
Bryan Adams - Summer of 69

I understand I am stereotyping all college bars and cover bands, so let me get into some specifics. Think of sweaty meathead dudes and chicks that are wearing too tight of clothes all convening into one small room with very bad "stage" lightening (i.e. blinking lights and straight-shooters of red, greens, and yellows) accentuating the too small stage in front. The band takes stage making their grand appearance and announces their unique and witty group's name and says they're going to play a real crowd pleaser. Each girl in the crowd starts bouncing up and down almost bouncing straight out of their bras, and the dudes get more excited and even more sweaty, but try to play it off as "whatever".

And there you are, in the middle of all these clones wondering, "How the hell did I get here?"

So in order to ease your pain, you drink more... and more and more and more and more and more.

The band starts their lineup with, you guessed, Jet - Are You Gonna Be My Girl.
(No no no no. They will never start with Journey or the Outfield. They save those songs for their second or third set because they know that the whole crowd will sing, you included.)

By the time the band is in the middle of their second set, you will have cranberry juice running down your nice white shirt and some rando's sweat dripping on you from behind. This dude has been trying to dance with you all night and you've never met him. But it's dark, and your drunk, and he's kind of cute... in the dark when your drunk.

The band has played all the songs that hit the Billboard Top 10 circa 1992, and the whole crowd is gleaming with joy. It's like Kildare's is the only bar on Main Street that has this crazy cover band playing these too rad of songs. Have these people ever been to any other bar? Or a wedding? You are being a cynical bitch. You stop yourself, smile, guzzle down the rest of your vodka Redbull, and pretend like you fucking love the song Champagne Supernova. So does the rest of the crowd, and you've taken notice.

This is when you take a sabbatical in the confines of a stall in the bathroom. You undo your wallet and take your tiny baggie out and make a nice thick line on the back of the toilet seat in the hopes that your night will improve.

You've reentered the dance floor and immediately as you take a step forward, some slutty couple starts making out, tongues lashing against each other. She is an inch or two taller than him making it even more repulsive. But you are now drunk and fucked up, so you continue to part through the crowd that is sloshing around like they are a rowboat in a typhoon.

You make it to your group of friends and as soon as the next song starts playing, you jump and dance around, grabbing your friend's hand and screaming the lyrics into each other's faces. Congratulations, you have successfully become everything you despise. Be Proud.


This is an exaggerated fictional story similar though to what routinely runs through my head when I'm out at bars. And in my defense, my dad played in a band during his early twenties that extended late into his forties covering the same songs.. I've been to his shows and seen him perform as backup singer and bassist and loved each and every minute of it. But here is my critique. When my father was in his early twenties, the only means of music they had was records and the radio. Cd's weren't invented and computer technology was non-existent. They played what they knew and everyone seemed to love it. People still love the songs they played, obviously portrayed in the scenario I just gave you.

As my dad got older and so did his fans, I deemed it acceptable that everyone sing along to the same tired out songs. Maybe I just am tired of hearing (and denying) that we all love these classic bar songs. But still, I can take Journey and Oasis and Jet in tiny increments, not all at one sitting. Yeah when I'm in my car and hear Journey, I'll leave it on since my Ipod adapter is broken and I still don't have a CD player. But when I go to a college bar in Philadelphia (maybe I am wishful thinking) but sometimes I wish people explored other musical outlets enough that coverbands would start playing some of their songs. I'm not saying play Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah or Lykke Li or Kings of Leon, but even The Killers or The Strokes? Come on, they've even hadsome songs that were played on pop radio stations.

My whole problem is more of an inner exstistential crisis I am having. I bitch and complain about the shitty music I hear at these bars and the shitty people I see all around me, yet I am part of it. I sing along and bop around to these songs I can't seem to bear, and wonder if I am alone or if others feel the same. I put myself in situations that I know I'll hate, then when I switch it up and, say, go to a complete hipster bar where all they play is indie underground music, I get annoyed at every asshole with tight jeans and dirty hair that walks past. Maybe I am having an identity crisis internally and can't get my bearings straight.

For the record, I mean no harm venting my thoughts, because like I already suggested, if you do read my pitiful blog you probably are an equally fucked individual. No offense.

All I ask is college kids, get some education with your music and don't fall victim to bar songs always. Next time you request, make it something that's eccentric and slightly less popular so that not everyone is forced to pretend to love the song "American Idiot" by Green Day.