tribute bands, a growing trend?

[Hamer95USA]

My AC/DC tribute band, Long Gon Bon, from San Jose, CA.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHiHk6kw0obheUujBqKXWHldRCu1s4iW5

[Dave Scepter]

36 minutes ago, Hamer95USA said:

My AC/DC tribute band, Long Gon Bon, from San Jose, CA.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHiHk6kw0obheUujBqKXWHldRCu1s4iW5

Out fuk'n standing!..

Sounds KILLER!!!🤘😝🤘

 

[DaveH]

On 12/4/2023 at 7:12 PM, Biz Prof said:

Likely so.  To wit, bands like Foreigner and Blackfoot have effectively been tribute bands for several years now (several decades in the case of Blackfoot).

Don't forget Foghat

[Ralph]

This was my Judas Priest tribute a couple of years ago. I'm the bassist.

[tommy p]

18 hours ago, ChugD said:

As you can tell, I gravitate towards the tribute bands that aren't trying to be exactly like the real band.

Mini KISS

 

I know a guy who was Paul Stanley in that band for a while.  Now he's Little Ozzy.

[ChugD]

The Priest and AC/DC bands are fantastic!

[Camstone]

My wife insisted that I take her to see a Seattle band named Epic Queen last summer. They were pretty damned good. The guitar player and drummer were the highlights for me.

 

[tbonesullivan]

As I live in the NYC area, there are multiple Tribute bands around now. For years I've always heard of the many KISS tribute bands, but now they seem to be more on the Rise, especially for acts that you literally cannot see anymore. The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Queen are the Tributes I hear about the most in the NYC area.

I still remember the first real Tribute band I saw, pre-pandemic, at the Stanhope House in NJ. LEZ ZEPPELIN. They are honestly incredible. They put on a spectacular show, and recreate so much of the famous performance stuff, including all the Theremin weird dancing things. I saw them again a month or two ago, and they are still incredible. People in the audience were going wild, and the age range was probably teenagers to people in their 80s, or at least people who LOOKED like they were in their 80s.

I keep meaning to catch some of the other tribute bands but keep getting super busy.

[mathman]

Quite a few Tribute bands play in Daytona at the bandshell.  Saw a few over the years.  Most were pretty good. Nothing stands out but I know I wasn't there for some of the better ones.

 

[tbonesullivan]

On 12/5/2023 at 8:43 AM, hamerhead said:

Mixed bag for me - on one hand, good music is good music. A lot of the old bands just flat can't do it anymore, while (some of) the tributes put in real effort and actually sound better.

On the other hand - been there, done that. I mean, if you're going to put in all that effort, why not do your own thing (says the guy currently recording covers )?

I get it, but at the same time, the LIVE experience is something that can only really be experience... well.. LIVE. My secret or not so secret other musical addiction besides guitars is playing trombone. I've played in Jazz bands, Symphony Orchestras, Wind Symphonies, etc, which is all music written by someone else, often who died before electricity existed. I know it's a totally different style of musical experience, but in many ways it is the same.

There was one conductor / composer in particular, Sergiu Celibidache, who was conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, who was pretty out there, but apparently his performances were legendary. He sought to create a type of synergistic "transcendental experience" during the concerts he conducted, which would involve him, the orchestra, and the audience. Many said that his concerts could be life-altering due to how good they were.

So anyway, a truly good tribute band plays the music, but also creates the experience. And as you often get to see them in relatively small venues, it's a much more powerful experience IMHO. Like, when I saw Lez Zeppelin the first time, I was literally 10 feet away from this:

 

[Brooks]

HHB has been doing a Jimi Band of Gypsys thing for awhile;

 

Here's live rehearsal room audio & still pics from my Rush tribute ~2010;

 

Here's a live studio recording of my short lived Kings X project from summer 2020;

 

[DaveL]

There was a Kiss tribute band in my area...  the ace was really chubby.   

 

    Almost Queen from NY I think, is pretty good, they do gangbusters and

sometimes plays large theatres...           

 

  The Lords of 52 Street does Billy Joel but they have alot of Billy's original band

(Liberty Devito, Richie Cannata  sp?)  and they blew me away...  the singer pianist

didn't know his name but he was awesome too.     As you know,  if you don’t play the classic era Billy Joel, bad things can happen.  Lol

 

 

 

   

[Dave Scepter]

I remember way back seeing Randy Hansen tribute to Jimi... watched him play about 1/2 dozen times over the years and was quite good and did not disappoint 👏 

[polara]

I'm way too old to have illusions of impacting anything anywhere, but it's gotta be weird for the young players moving up. In my "heyday" of the late 80s to 2000, the goal of most bands was to do your own thing, and do it so well it turned into something big. And it worked: even I was technically with a signed act. But with collapse of the label system and the Boomers refusing to be proper old people and stay on the shuffleboard courts and 5pm buffets... well. If ya want to get booked, pick an act past their prime, learn to play the material they did when they were hot, and you'll gig every weekend. Want to do your own music? Prepare to play house parties and damp basements in challenging neighborhoods. Reality. But I'm sure it's a blast to be in one, and I'd be down for doing a Killing Joke tribute band now that Kevin (Geordie) has left this temporal plane.

[woodpile]

Some local Boise boys rehearsing for their Thin Lizzy tribute band "Still Dangerous"

 

[RobB]

1 hour ago, woodpile said:

Some local Boise boys rehearsing for their Thin Lizzy tribute band "Still Dangerous"

 

Dang, I really enjoyed that. Super-tight and accurate. 

[svl]

4 hours ago, woodpile said:

Some local Boise boys rehearsing for their Thin Lizzy tribute band "Still Dangerous"

 

Dig the music, but the vox kill it for me. 

I was in a few tributes, the problems were always the same- couldn't get the vocalist spot on, and they didn't earn enough (U2 trib booked like crazy around St Pats, dead the rest of the year, for example). Most fun I had was the Cheap Trick trib "Cheap Tribute"...

 

[Jimbilly]

On 12/5/2023 at 8:54 AM, Dutchman said:

It seem's to be very popular in this area. With ZZTop clone, Greatful Dead Clone and several others. 

On another note back in the late nintys the top forty wasn't drawing very well any longer. So our drummer suggested we do sets of different bands. Dress like them and nail their music. The rooms started filling seats again. We employed the cheap table tents for suggestions of what that area wanted to hear. Lined it all up and we where back to packing the house again.

Trust the power of table tents!!! Cheap, and great insight to what that room enjoys!!!

My wife saw a band in Vegas maybe a year ago that did something similar: several singers, each dressed for 4 or 5 songs from that artist, then the next singer would come out for however many songs. Basically, it was the same band, and only the singer changed, and it may have been one singer doing more than one of the characters, she couldn't tell. She said that she and her friends really enjoyed the way that was done.

[burningyen]

In Orange, CT tonight.

 

[Brooks]

On 12/7/2023 at 7:43 PM, svl said:

Dig the music, but the vox kill it for me. 

I was in a few tributes, the problems were always the same- couldn't get the vocalist spot on, and they didn't earn enough (U2 trib booked like crazy around St Pats, dead the rest of the year, for example). Most fun I had was the Cheap Trick trib "Cheap Tribute"...

 

 

This sounds real good.

I agree about most tributes not getting the vocals close enough, that's the main reason I bailed on the Rush tribute (& why I olny have a youtube of YYZ).

[mrjamiam]

On 12/7/2023 at 7:33 AM, DaveL said:

There was a Kiss tribute band in my area...  the ace was really chubby.  

Brent?

[cmatthes]

On 12/10/2023 at 10:52 AM, mrjamiam said:

Brent?

 

[Biz Prof]

On 12/10/2023 at 9:34 AM, Brooks said:

I agree about most tributes not getting the vocals close enough, that's the main reason I bailed on the Rush tribute (& why I olny have a youtube of YYZ).

Speaking of Rush tributes, my high school buddies and I often quipped that depending on your personal perspective, this famous sketch looks like either a young lady wearing a fur coat and a fancy hat or Geddy Lee wearing a fur coat and a fancy hat.

 

[santellavision]

There's a really nice venue in Golden, CO that my band used to play all the time. Now, they just want Tribute bands. Kinda' bummed about that.

 

[Jimbilly]

heading out shortly to see a Ratt tribute along with Hysteria (you can guess who they do). My wife is teasing out her hair and trying to remember how she did her makeup way back then!