I’ve often pondered why some bands have so many tribute acts and some others very few or none at all. I present a Gig Guide show on the local radio, so I have become very aware of what seems to work and what doesn’t, but I have no real idea why.
The Beatles, ABBA, Queen, Elvis Presley, Fleetwood Mac, Eagles and Pink Floyd I would say are the most numerous by far. I can understand the first five of those as they had loads of huge hits, but Pink Floyd didn’t there are no end of Pink Floyd tribute bands and they always seem to be on locally. They sell well too. Why Pink Floyd and not, say, Yes or Genesis? I have done interviews with bands hopefully trying to sell tickets for a Journey show, and Toto, and I just knew they wouldn’t have an audience, but what about the Rolling Stones, the Who, or the Kinks? There are, I think, a couple of Stones and Who tribute shows, but certainly not many considering their popularity. The originals are still going of course, so maybe that makes some difference..? The Eagles had very few genuine hits in the UK, but theeir tributes sell shedloads of tickets.
So what is the criteria for a successful tribute act?
Cos their stuff is easy to play (Floyd) 😉
Might be something in that, Dai – and I’m a fan!
Just what I was going to say, @dai. Or certainly in comparison to Yes or Genesis.
With yer Floyd there isn’t a massive need to have lookalike band members, I would suggest. You also have an absence of distinctive singing voices.
So if you’re a fan and a half-decent musician, you can probably rustle up a PF set quite easily.
Get an inflatable pig and you’re halfway there.
Probably not an Afterword t-shirt due to potential misinterpretation.
Arf @gatz!
No need to be able to sing harmonies with PF.
Well, not complex harmonies, anyway – Wright harmonising with Gilmour is one of my Floyd pleasures, but I suppose it’s as much to do with tone of voice and how they blend than the actual notes.
That’s pretty much what I’ve always thought with Floyd tributes. As long as you’ve got proficient players, a floating pig and some lasers you’re about there. Nobody’s that bothered about lookalikes with that lot as they’ve always been a bit non-descript in a lot of ways.
On the other hand, if you went to see a Blondie tribute band fronted by a Hilda Ogden lookalike you’d probably feel a bit put out
@myoldman
A Blondie tribute act fronted by Adele, Blandie would go down a storm
Yes and Genesis may have been very popular but do they have cross generational audiences like The Pink Floyd?
Not so much, certainly…not at the moment, anyway. Maybe they’ll come around again – like Sibelius! 🙂
The Beatles, ABBA, Queen, Fleetwood Mac and Elvis appeal to both sexes more than acts like Pink Floyd, The Who and The Stones. This is an advantage if the target market is couples of a certain age who fancy a night out.
I also don’t think The Who really have a cross-generational audience. Not a criticism, they just don’t seem to pick up fans in the way that Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Bowie do.
Wonder what it is about The Who?
The who are a very blokey act, and Oasis captured their emerging potential audience.
When I saw the Australian Pink Floyd at Jodrell Bank one fine summer’s day quite a few years ago, there were almost as many ladies as there were gentlemen
What’s the biggest band not to have a viable tribute act? Maybe it’s an 80s thing – all these people took themselves quite seriously -, but was there ever an Echo & the Bunnymen, Jesus and Mary Chain or Waterboys tribute? Jake Thackeray has got one, but has Richard Thompson?
Is there a Kate Bush tribute act out there? Apart from Tori Amos, I mean.
Yes.
https://www.withoutkatebush.com/
Yes, I’ve seen her. If you’re a K.B. fan I’d recommend seeing her
Kate Bush-Ka
Cloudbusting
Moments Of Pleasure
The Kate Bush Experience
Them Heavy People
etc.
I certain it was ‘Cloudbusting’, I recognised the lady
Not a tribute to Thommo but I once saw a poster for a Richard John Thompson, which oddly enough is RT’s full name.
A friend of mine sings in a cover band – ‘Prosecco and the bunnymen’! Not strictly a tribute band but there you go.
See also: The Singing Blue Nun…
Supported by Frank Black Tower, with bass provided by Pinot Grigio Palladino.
The Bunnymen and Waterboys, JAMC to a lesser extent, still tour regularly and fairly extensively. I’d imagine the demand for a tribute band goes down a fair bit when the real thing is still reasonably accessible.
I don’t recall ever seeing a Beach Boys tribute act on any listings.
The Floyd may not have had anywhere near as many hit singles as those other bands, but if you’ve been responsible for 3 of the greatest selling albums of all time, then there’s a ready made audience for the music.
I’ve seen the Bootleg Beatles a few times, they go for the lookalike/soundalike presentation and are very good at it.
I’ve also seen DVD’s with the Dutch band The Analogues who go for the soundalike presentation and they are excellent. Could The Beatles have performed ‘Abbey Road’ in a live setting? We’ll never know, I was going to answer with the same equipment most likely but The Analogues use the same equipment as The Beatles had at the time. If you are a Beatles fan check them out on YouTube
There’s a great doc about their astonishing June 2019 performance of Abbey Road at, er, Abbey Road, a gig I managed to get to. I’ve seen them a couple of times and they are really extraordinary. On this occasion, they did the whole album in Studio 1 and then everyone repaired to Studio 2 for an encore set, of mid sixties bangers.
Its rather lovely seeing these group of weathered Dutchmen go to such extreme lengths to rehearse exhaustively, figure out Abbey Road’s complex arrangements and instrumentation, secure historically accurate Moogs to play ‘Because’, find a Ludwig ‘Hollywood’ drum kit, travel to Bari in Italy to buy a rosewood Tele, order a Baldwin spinet and even try numerous combinations of metal poles and sticks before acquiring an anvil, as well as occasionally throw Let It Be style tantrums and nearly losing the one member who can really sing Oh! Darling to a delayed Easyjet flight.
Everything he said ⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️
What a wonderful story @slotbadger! Thanks!
It brought a big smile to my face.
Just taken a look at a couple of venues that book tribute acts hereabouts:
Gimme Gimme (ABBA)
Hats Off To Led Zeppelin
Slade UK
Pygmy Twylyte (Zappa)
Fleetwood Bac
Doors Alive
Stipe (REM)
Dirty DC
Bootleg Blondie
A Band Called Malice (The Jam)
Absolute Bowie
Rollin’ Stoned
Man Of The World (Peter Green)
Kast Off Kinks
Moving Pictures (Rush)
Boot Led Zeppelin
Transmission (Joy Division)
Pogue Traders
Love DistrAction (Human League)
Special Kinda Madness (Specials & Madness)
My Winehouse
Bruce Juice (Springsteen)
Stanley Dee
Nearly Dan
Wrong Jovi
Are You Experienced?
The Devout (Depeche Mode)
U2 Baby
Creedence Clearwater Review
Bad Company Experience
Red Hot Chilli Peppers Experience
Ultimate Beatles Tribute Show
Bootleg Beatles
The Musical Box (Genesis)
I had to check out Moving Pictures. Would probably go and see them.
The Kast Off Kinks aren’t strictly a tribute band as they have Mick Avory and various associated Kinks in the band.
There have been a couple of Zappa tribute bands in Oz. Not exactly easy music to play.
There was a Zappa band led by John Etheridge which was pretty good – Zapatistas !
Increased Soft Machine activity has probably put an end to it.
There was a very good one here, previously, called The Muffin Men. Liverpool-based. They used to gig with the late Jimmy Carl Black as a featured vocalist. They seem to have stopped gigging in recent times. Mostly their audiences were in France and Germany. Not much interest in the UK.
Enjoyed The Muffin Men.
This has just appeared on Facebook.
Pygmy Twylyte bring the music of Frank Zappa to venues across Scotland and England in the first half of 2024.
Gonna start a Can tribute called Can’t.
Back to the OP. Great songs.
There are bands who play Hackett-era Genesis stuff with variable results, but I think only ‘The Musical Box’ are/were as good as the best Floyd tribute; period instruments, costumes and the loan from Genesis of the lighting, slide projectors and original slides. Both Hackett and Collins played with The Musical Box, too.
With Steve Hackett playing shows largely consisting of Genesis’ songs from his time, he’s probably collapsed the need for a tribute.
Rick Buckler formed a Jam tribute band (a tribute to himself?) called The Gift.
Bruce Foxton joined a year later and changed the name to From The Jam. Rick left soon after, but Bruce is still flying his own flag
With a few mates including a Dylan tribute performer going to see Simply Dylan* at The Citadel in St. Helens in February
*They are a Dylan tribute act from Liverpool.
They could be a Simply Red tribute act fronted by Bob Dylan, given Bob’s well-documented love for the strawberry-blond Mancunian yodeller. You just never know.
There’s a pretty good local Dylan (electric) tribute band called The Zimmermen.
The tribute version is likely to be the only version available for the forseeable future. I know my sister goes to tribute bands even though she isn’t familiar with all the tunes because it’s a good, well performed night out and inexpensive. Many go to these Pink Floyd tribute concerts and think hmm, all these long solos. It’s a bit of an orxeal but it’s a visual spectacle anyway. It’s the closest you get to that heritage rock experience from the 60s and 70s that you wish you had witnessed even though it wasn’t really how you imagine it to have been.
I went to see one called Darkside earlier this year and they were great. The vocals and guitar sound were not quite right but good enough.
Depeche Mode have 7 active tribute bands, just based in Los Angeles alone. Worldwide, I would say there may be hundreds of them.
You just need a singer to try to replicate Dave Gahan and a good guitarist (lots of their later hits have a distinctive guitar riff) who can sing high notes, like Martin Gore. When I saw “Strangelove” live, the singer resembled 80s Dave very closely but the real test was his singing voice. It was spot on and the audience loved it.
If you are going to be a tribute act why restrict yourself to one band?
Dread Zeppelin are a tribute to Led Zeppelin, Elvis and the Jamaican 1970s reggae scene, all rolled into one.
Beat that for value for money!
And then there’s GABBA.
You guessed it. ABBA’s greatest hits played in the style of the Ramones.
The kind of band that makes me think: “I must have dreamt that!”
And then there’s Tragedy and their All Metal Tribute to the Bee Gees.
Anyone remember James Brown, not that one, aka The King, Belfast’s singing postman, an Elvis tribute act who specialised in performing songs by similarly deceased artists. In the style of Elvis. Two great albums, Gravelands and, um, another one. Here’s my favourite track:
And then there’s Mexrissey…..
These aren’t really a covers band, but, when they do, o yes, the Ukrainians hit paydirt!
Getting back to the subjects of the thread (sort of) there’s Polka Floyd, who do precisely what their name suggests.
Let’s face it, a ‘Fab FM’ Bank Holiday weekend all-time most favourite tracks countdown is going to feature The Beatles, ABBA, Queen, Elvis Presley, Fleetwood Mac, Eagles and Pink Floyd more than anyone else. As a former Beatles specialist band member the attraction was that there was a huge range of material that everyone in the group could agree on, as opposed to our first plan, which was that we’d cherry-pick the REM back catalogue. I suspect that the majority of these PF bands don’t come any closer to the present day than The Wall (and skip conveniently over Animals), which would probably be peak-familiarity for most civilians and still a healthy catalogue to pick from. A friend of mine is in a Genesis- material band, but only the Collins era, which probably goes some way to explaining their popularity with the casual gig-goer, or £50 guy and his partner, as we know them.
I suppose the main point is: are the band in question still going? I bloody love Echo and the Bunnymen, but they tour constantly, so there’s probably no need for a tribute band.
On a previous thread, I mentioned that I’d seen a Level 42 tribute band. I’ve nothing against Level 42 – some fab singles – but they just don’t strike me as the kind of group to inspire the type of fanaticism that’d blossom into a tribute band. I’m clearly wrong.
No idea if they’re still going, or if they’re any good, but a mate once advised me to see the Counterfeit Stones, as they’re more like the 60s Stones than the current bunch. I’ve heard mixed reviews.
I saw a Ronan Keating tribute act once. I may have dreamt this up, but I’m sure he was called Ronan Cheating.
I saw a Stones tribute at a mate’s 50th. His brother in law was chatting to the singer in their break, when suddenly “Mick” shot out of the room. Apparently he was eyeing some lissom lovely on the dance floor and remarked “Now that is what I call jail bait”.
“Really?”, replied the brother in law. “I call her my daughter”.
Much hilarity ensued.
Quite a few years ago I was working doing electrics on a loft conversion at a carpenter’s house. The chippie was doing everything himself apart from the plumbing and electrics. One day the young plumber who was working there with us saw a very pretty girl walking up the road and said “Cor, look at that bird. Wouldn’t you like to give her one?” The carpenter quietly said “That’s my daughter.” and sure enough she rang the doorbell and her dad let her in.
The atmosphere between plumber and client was decidedly frosty for the rest of the day. The next day there was a different plumber on site, as the client had called the plumber’s boss and told him to send somebody else to finish off.