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Tribute Bands : The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

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We saw the Bootleg Beatles at the Stroud Subscription Rooms last Thursday (the same venue as the real Beatles played in 1962 – the first gig booked under the auspices of Brian Epstein). They were by far the best Beatles tribute band I’ve seen (and I’ve seen a few). For me, the interesting question on tribute bands is how much weight is given to looks and similarity to the originals against musicianship. With the Bootleg Beatles, “Paul” looked vaguely similar although it was a bit odd seeing an older Paul face in their 60s suits. “John” looked OK although the syrup was a bit dodgy. “Ringo” was pretty good but by far the best was “George” who looked uncannily like the real George, particularly in his later 60s incarnation.
So what are your experiences of tribute bands – good, bad or just plain ugly?

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Comments

  2. Bit like choosing the local am dram soc version of a film instead of seeing the film. Just don’t see the point. Steve Gibbons Dylan Project an honourable exception as it is still him, playing himself, just happening to do a set of all Dylan covers, having already shown what a good interpreter he is of Bobby.

    • Except if you want to hear the music of, say, The Beatles, or Pink Floyd, or Genesis, or ABBA played live you’re only going to do so if you go to a tribute band.

          • If you want to see a live Beethoven gig, you go to a concert hall and see some “classical” musicians. Similar situation with “The Great American Song Book” and jazz. For a lot of their time, the great orchestras and jazz combos are basically cover bands.

            • Up to a point. But the difference is that any orchestra and conductor will bring their own interpretation to a piece written by a classical composer whereas a tribute band typically tries very hard to not only play the notes of the music they but also the whole sound of the artists they are covering down to the last detail.

          • A few years ago I would have held the same view as you @retropath2 except then I saw Nearly Dan (excellent) and The Rumours of Fleetwood Mac who to be honest were superb and actually better than the real thing.
            If Fleetwood Mac are too bloated to perform again in an enormodome then I am happy to see better musicians cover songs at the Symphony Hall and have the packed auditorium on their feet from start to finish – it was that good.

  3. T.Rextasy are very good. The singer Danielz has more than a passing resemblance to Marc Bolan.
    They also do original material which is not really the point of a tribute band but could be seen as “this is what might’ve happened”

  4. I saw the Bangkok Beatles a few years back. They were awesome. They played the long medley from Abbey Road, note perfect. After the gig, I told “Paul” I’d seen the real thing (The Beatles, not the group called “The Real Thing”) and the Bangkok Beatles were better.

  5. I don’t see many of them but I don’t care what they look like and prefer if they don’t attempt to. But they have to broadly sound like them. Nearly Dan are good.

  6. G2 are an exemplary Genesis tribute act. Do everything up to and including the Duke album. Seen them dozens of times and they have never disappointed.

  7. My band of the late ‘80’s/early ‘90’s shared a bill with the Paperback Beatles . I couldn’t fault their interpretations but none of them looked remotely like any of the Fabs, even with wigs, skinny black suits, etc. I found it most unsettling.

  8. The Australian Pink Floyd Show put on a spectacular, erm, show – and as the Floyd were always fairly faceless, it doesn’t really matter what the tribute act looks like. Yes, the real Floyd had a limitless budget so their sturm and drang will always have a bit more sturm and a lot more drang than any tribute band can come up with, but the Aussies fill arenas every year and often sound uncannily like the real thing, with just the right synth and guitar sounds.

    Fellow tribute band Think Floyd, on the other hand… not so much.

    The only other tribute act I’ve seen is Bjorn Again. Wonderful, as mentioned above, and not afraid to play some deep cuts as well as all the usual. I will always remember “Bjorn” or “Benny” introducing their encore with “Here is some more satin-based music”, which seems like a fair description of Abba.

    • Also not afraid to take the piss out of themselves. Or the original Australian “classic lineup” Bjorn Again were not, if you can have such a thing as an original lineup of a tribute band. I don’t know about the later incarnations, having seen only a handful of shows since.

      1992-94, my “year” of Bjorn Again, was one of the best ever. 100% guaranteed fun.

    • The Genesis-tribute ‘The Musical Box’ were given access to the ur-band’s store of stage equipment, and used – I think – some of the lighting, and also all of the slides and projectors used for ‘The Lamb’.

    • I’ve seen a few ropey Floyd tribute bands, but I disagree about Think Floyd…! They are terrific. Wall of Floyd, The Pink Floyd Experience…they are pretty good, but not in the same league.

          • I may have done Think Floyd a disservice above, NigelT. Their gig (focusing on The Wall, IIRC) was fine – although my better half thought they had gone a bit berserk with the lasers, which seemed to be directed straight at her – but I saw it not long after the Australian Pink Floyd Show, and it was clear that the Aussies had gone the extra mile, sound-and-light wise.

            Given the sad impossibility of the Floyd ever touring again, either of these acts could probably claim that they are the next best thing.

  9. I saw Limehouse Lizzy some years back, and they were excellent. And although not the same thing, the “All Or Nothing” stage show includes a bunch of Small Faces songs performed live – simply stunning. Ex AW music consultant Alex Gold plays Ian McLagan.

  10. Not seen many but The Small Fakers are excellent and I saw Noasis at a camping festival this summer and they were very good, allowing for the fact that I’m not really a huge fan of the original band.

  11. I don’t mind tribute bands. I can enjoy a group of individuals playing – often very well- a set of some of my favourite songs. I like some of the names they come up with.

    But it’s the wigs. I wish they wouldn’t wear wigs to make themselves ‘look’ like our heroes currently not present in the room. It makes the whole exercise just a little bit tittersome.

    Don’t dress up. Don’t put a bloody wig on and just play.

      • I was originally going to say I’d recently seen a Quo tribute band that had impressed, but they weren’t a tribute. They were John Coghlan’s Quo, no less. Mr Coghlan being the original drummer.

        They played material from his era, so the proper mid 70’s wallpaper-peelers.

        What threw me very early on though was that the rhythm guitarist was a stone cold ringer for Deep Purple”s Roger Glover. Mind bending at the time,

  12. Once upon a time, I saw Whole Lotta Led somewhere in London. They didn’t seem to have made any effort to resemble the originals physically but had presumably practised hard at replicating one of the band’s shows at, if I remember rightly, Earls Court in 1975. For all I know, they played all the right notes in the right order. They were certainly loud. But to my ears they lacked any feel, swing or musicality. I was hating the gig. So I turned to my friends and said, “If they play Moby Dick, I’m leaving.” On cue, they started playing Moby Dick. And I left. Can’t say I have ever regretted it.

  13. I saw the Bootleg Beatles back in the 90s. Is it still the same fellas doing it? They were brilliant, in fairness to them; they must be knocking on a bit now.

    I did see a Robbie Williams tribute act at a university end-of-term gig. He was a mixed-race fella who sounded oddly like Damon Albarn – I doubt he ever set up a website.

    • No, I think they’ve all changed since then – ‘John’ in particular is relatively new and I’d guess still in his twenties. They are probably the best I’ve seen at capturing the nuances and look of the band, but also being superb musically.

      I agree with those who say they just want to hear the music well played rather than have the wigs and costumes, but with the Bootlegs it’s basically very well done theatre, and none the worse for that.

  14. I’ve just been searching t’internet and can’t find any evidence of there being a tribute band for Fairport Convention. I wonder why not. Don’t folkies like tribute bands?

    I hasten to add that I am not trying to start a debate about whether the current line-up should itself be described as a tribute band!

      • Let’s face it, if they presented themselves as a Fairport Convention tribute band most punters would probably demand their money back. It might be fairer to regard the current line-up as a completely different band from the one that traded under the name in its first few years. But if they didn’t use the famous name, would anyone be interested in them? And since they continue to use the name and to play the occasional anaemic version of one of the old songs, he can hardly complain about the odd “unkind” comment.

    • Mate of mine is the drummer in a Pistols tribute band, called, err,The Pistols. They are excellent. Steve Jones came to see them and said “you were miles better than we were, mind you we were shit”!

  16. I learned today that the drummer in a leading ELO tribute band – The ELO Experience – was in a band with me when I was 18. He was really good then too.

    • I expect that tribute band musicians are generally better than real band musicians. The former are experienced musicians who have had to audition for their roles. The latter are often just schoolfriend or friends of friends from the same hometown.

      • Seems to me there are two quite separate kinds of tribute bands.
        There are the ones who play a particular artists music because they are fans themselves and just want to play to those who will appreciate the music, and there are those who want to look, sound and act like the artists, to create a show for an audience of fans.

        The level of skill required in a tribute act is dependent on the material to be played. To do justice to say Steely Dan or Frank Zappa, a formiddable level of musicianship is required. Not necessarily for some of the artists/bands who have tributes. As mentioned above, some tributes are far more accomplished, musically, than the original artists ever were.

        But audiences expect a higher standard of musicianship than before, nowadays.

  17. There are/were a surprising number of Mahavishnu Orchestra tribute/homage ensembles – from flamenco troupes to string quartets to electric bands. Of the latter, the supremos are/were Gregg Bendian’s Mahavishnu Project, which released three albums, the pinnacle being the ‘Return to the Emerald Beyond’ 2CD live set – an extended visit to the material of MO Mk2’s (relatively rarely played live) ‘Visions of the Emerald Beyond’ album. That extended M Project band featured original MO Mk2 member Premik Russell Tubbs on flute/sax.

    Here’s a live clip from that period:

  18. We’ve seen The Smyths a couple of times, the last time being a couple of weeks ago. The three not- Morrisseys didn’t particularly look like their counterparts, but they sounded great. The singer had the mannerisms down pat (minus all the right wing rubbish) and Gladioli were flung into the crowd and regular intervals.

  20. I vividly remember seeing the 21st Century Schizoid Band back in the days when Fripp wasn’t interested in revisiting early Crimson material. My mates and I were right at the front and the experience of being assaulted full in the face by 21st Century Schizoid Man is never to be forgotten. If I remember rightly, Jakko Jakszyk was the only member of the band who had not, at the time, been a member of Crimson. He introduced himself as the recent winner of Prog Idol.

    Now I reflect on it, that was the best tribute act I have ever seen.

  21. The Analogues do perfect copies of Beatles songs. I wouldn’t call them a tribute band though necessarily. It’s more like a project to reproduce the material live in every detail, however much of a challenge that may be. It’s treating the songs like they are classical music. It’s on a more serious level than a tribute band: https://www.theanalogues.net/

    Generally I wouldn’t bother with seeing tribute bands. It seems a bit pointless. I would recommend P-Floyd from Sweden though. Maybe it’s a long way to come just for that but it’s the kind of music that suits such an approach because it’s less about the individuals and more about instrumentals and effects. A real aeroplane flying toward the crowd. Light shows and extended solos. It feels not so far away from the real thing. Not that I’ve ever seen the real thing.
    https://www.p-floyd.com/?lang=sv

  22. The ELO Encounter played our local “festival’ which is made up of tribute bands headlining and local bands earlier in the day. The festival is a fundraiser for the towns football club and gets a great attendance and has been running for over 10 years. The ELO Encounter were the best band I have seen there (by some distance).

    This clip nearly does them justice.

  23. A Level 42 tribute band played in my local pub last year. I’ve nothing against Mark King, his rubber thumb and chums (I think they did some good songs), but I’d have thought them unlikely to inspire the bloom of devotion required to elicit a tribute band.

    • See also Holy Holy, who did claim Woody Woodmansey on drums until he was ousted due to COVID differences. I have to say I disagreed with the guy on his stance, but the way he was removed, and the subsequent snark from Mr Visconti, left a sour taste for me, and what was a very special band – way more than a ‘tribute’ – has lost its lustre.

  28. The local council booked three days worth of tribute acts to play our market square over the jubilee weekend. I didn’t catch many, due to being elsewhere, but the ones I heard were generally dreadful. The ‘Elvis’ seemed to be partaking in a round of ‘One Song To The Tune Of Another’.

    I did walk across our square at one point to get to somewhere else, and spotted a couple of lads singing Ticket To Ride whilst ‘playing’ acoustic guitars. Whatever they were supposedly playing certainly wasn’t what was well known jangly guitar riff coming through the loudspeakers.

  29. There’s an Arena documentary about tribute bands on iPlayer. It’s very good, as Arenas pretty much always are. It’s called Into the Limelight.

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