Tribute Bands

Yes, I know it’s Friday the thirteenth.  I don’t watch the movies and I’m not superstitious.  (“Aww, you’re no fun anymore.”  Idle: “That’s my line!”)

I’ve been scouring the websites for local (DC) and NYC-area clubs for concerts coming up in 2017, but too much of what I see on their calendars are tribute bands. 

I’ve seen a few in the past:  tribute bands for AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Pink Floyd, and the Grateful Dead.  They vary in the effort they make to reproduce the band’s image as opposed to its sound.  We saw Def Leppard recently, and singer Joe Elliott joked that “we’re the top Def Leppard tribute band!”

 

One guy in a Beatles tribute band said he heard that Paul McCartney was NOT a fan of such bands.   McCartney in fact showed up at one of their shows.  Sir Paul asked the guy if his band plays “Tomorrow Never Knows” (one of my favorites, by the way) and upon hearing an affirmative answer, turned away with a smirk and said nothing more.  My guess is that McCartney feels that tribute bands are lazy bastards, covering others’ material instead of writing their own.  Face it, even if a band faithfully replicates the Beatles’ 1964 stage show, or their 1967 Magical Mystery Tour setup – hell, even if the bass player is right-handed and learns to play left-handed – we’re still talking about a band plunging deep into cover territory instead of writing their own material.  Another reason for the smirk is that the Beatles themselves never intended “Tomorrow Never Knows” to be played live, so doing so is kind of silly.  I’ve seen the Grateful Dead cover it – RFK 1992 – but we know the Dead are not a cover band even if they play a fair amount of them.

We saw an Iron Maiden cover band at Jaxx in Alexandria the same night Iron Maiden themselves were playing in Rio de Janeiro.  They played a set similar to what Maiden themselves played at the time, or the Live After Death set.  Mind you, several years ago Maiden played a tour – including Janick Gers – which promised a set solely from the first four albums.  Except that since all that material was still commonly in the set anyway, the only deep cut was “Phantom of the Opera”, a Paul D’ianno song which appears on side 4 of Live After Death.  Judas Priest did the same with British Steel, an album which already gets 50% of its material played on a regular basis; Rush did the same with Moving Pictures.  I’d ask that bands refrain from being disingenuous like this.  And if you’re a tribute band, how about making at least 50% of your set deep cuts?  Please don’t simply copy the band’s existing setlist.    

A cover band of a band still recording and touring – still active – seems a bit silly.   Even if you don’t like Metallica’s current direction, they still play material from Kill ‘Em All and Ride the Lightning live.  Getting back to the Beatles, the cover band mentioned above focuses on the Beatles’ post Revolver material, i.e. after the Beatles stopped touring.  Their attitude is, “it’s a shame the Beatles never played these songs live, as even the Beatles themselves would agree it’s better than the songs they did play live when they were still touring.”  Tool might be a special case – we’re still waiting for a follow-up to 10,000 Days (released in 2006) and they don’t tour that much these days.  Maynard is touring with A Perfect Circle and seems to indicate that he’s waiting for the rest of the band to finish the music before he puts down his vocals.  Anyway.

The Dead are another special case.   Long after Garcia’s death, the remaining band members have reunited several times and currently tour as “Dead & Company”.  But they’re playing stadiums for $$$, whereas Dead cover bands are playing clubs for $.  The Doors are obviously not touring.  Pink Floyd no longer tour as a band, and are effectively over, but Roger Waters is back in stadium form.  Given his preference for Dark Side and later, any Floyd cover band should probably focus on the Syd and “weird shit” eras, i.e. Saucerful of Secrets through Meddle.  Performing “The Atom Heart Mother Suite” with an orchestra would be a nice touch, but good luck persuading Gilmour OR Waters to do that, and that’s probably too ambitious a project for a tribute band to tackle. 

“Rock Star” was a movie about a tribute band, loosely based on Judas Priest.  Mark Wahlberg played the de facto Ripper Owens character in the story, the tribute band singer who wound up in the actual band.  Dominic West (“The Wire”) and Zakk Wylde were also in here, Jeff Pilson (Dokken) played bass, Jason Bonham handled the drums, and Myles Kennedy, the singer for Alter Bridge, is the one Wahlberg passes his torch/mike to at the end of the film.  There’s a scene in the film where he corrects someone, “we’re not a COVER band, we’re a TRIBUTE band!”  We only cover songs by ONE band!

Having said all that, I have the guitars and amps, and know the material well enough, to establish several different tribute bands, mostly AC/DC, Black Sabbath, and Pink Floyd.  What I would consider most worthwhile would be a band that didn’t focus on any one particular band – i.e. a cover band, not a tribute band – rather, which focused on the deep cuts of our favorite 70’s bands.  “Dreamer Deceiver”>”Deceiver”, by Judas Priest,  “Thrill of It All”, by Black Sabbath,  “Overdose”, by AC/DC, or “Strange World”, by Iron Maiden.  These are songs which were probably NEVER played live by those bands, but which we all love.  If I found a bassist and drummer willing to go at, this might be a good idea. Stay tuned.