Divine Comedy covers...

The other day I discovered this version of The Divine Comedy covering The Pixies' "Gigantic":




Which led me to today finding Neil Hannon covering the Pet Shop Boys' "Being Boring":




They've always been a great covers band, rivalling even The Afghan Whigs, who I believe have probably given us the greatest covers of other people's songs.  But Mr. Hannon is such an excellent musician, he's able to play any song by ear; a highly entertaining part of the show often being his asking for people to shout out requests, though they must not be his own songs.  Catching The Divine Comedy on the Absent Friends tour in Boston, MA, at TT The Bear's, we were treated to fun takes on Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child O'Mine" & Oasis' "Champagne Supernova" with an amazing version of Prince's "Purple Rain".

Here's Neil doing The Human League's "Don't You Want Me" at The Lexington in London 4/11/10 (so wish I had known about this!):




With Cathy Davey performing "I Only Have Eyes For You" at Manchester Academy 9/11/10:




There's the 3 Magnetic Fields covers from the b-sides:








Jacques Brel's "Jackie":




A lovely lo-fi take on "Moon River":




Roxy Music's "Oh Yeah":




"Life On Mars?" with Yann Tiersen:




Kraftwerk's "Radioactivity" and "The Model":






Edwyn Collins' "Untitled Melody":




MGMT's "Time To Pretend":




Sacha Distel's "The Good Life":




Randy Newman's "Lonely At The Top":




And these last two come from the bonus disc of "Bang Goes The Knighthood", recorded live in Paris at Cité De La Musique, 23/9/08.  I was at the second of these gigs, where Neil alternated between classic chanson and his own songs.  Here's him doing Jacques Dutronc's "Les Playboys".  And then one of my fondest gig memories when he went from Francoise Hardy's cover of Mina's "Se Telefonando" (one of my all-time favourite songs) "Je Changerais D'Avis" into his own "Tonight We Fly".






And there's plenty more too.