10 Songs Rock Bands Refuse To Play Live
"No stairway!? Denied!"
Everyone can grasp getting sick and tired of a song. A tune can be catchy as hell at first and then a living hell for you the next. Once you hear a song enough, your brain doesn’t interact with it in the same way. It no longer releases the endorphins it did the first time you heard it, with your brain eventually rejecting it through too many listens. Overexposure is what kills music, with our appreciation decreasing once the novelty has worn off and we become over familiar with it. Anthems like Mr. Brightside and Uptown Funk would be critically considered two of the greatest pieces of all time had they been B-sides rather than singles with radio play. Instead they’ll be wedding and office party jams until the end of time.
Strangely with musicians, they have the same thing with their own songs. Bands can easily get sick of their own material if they hear and play it enough, retreating from their own creation because of boredom playing it night after night. The popularity of a song sometimes goes against bands playing it live on tour. Heckle a band with a song enough and they’ll soon turn against it. A fan once shouted out for Creep to be played at a Radiohead concert only for Thom Yorke to respond with “f**k off, we’re tired of it.”
Most bands grit their teeth and play through another rendition of the song that got them an audience in the first place, while others just straight up refuse to perform or acknowledge it. Robert Plant once said of the Led Zeppelin classic 'Stairway to Heaven', “I’d break out in hives if I had to sing it in every show.”
Here are 10 bands that have erased certain songs from their setlists for good.