Good points, blackcatter: From a performer's perspective, there are certain songs that you feel you almost HAVE to include in a concert. If you don't, people will ask why you didn't. Rick Nelson pretty much summed up that whole experience in Garden Party. I don't think that most performers mind singing their few songs that they've become identified with, as long as they can mix in new songs, and songs they do infrequently. The only catch is if you really get SICK of a song that people are often requesting. It can sometimes be hard to keep a song fresh and interesting to yourself, that you sing a lot.    Musicians who are on the road and do as many as 200 concerts a year (and I've known some) sometimes can sound like they're on auto-pilot singing the same songs night after night with the same introductions and the same rehearsed impromptu comments and asides. I don't blame singers for that. Being on the road is about as draining a way of life as there is, and people have to find some way to survive. Fortunately, most of us bask in relative obscurity, so we're not as likely to get sick of songs we perform.

Jerry