Tribute Act Industry

ive never gone out looking for shows like this, and as far as venues with lots of cover bands, im really only aware of a small handful in the bay area that all focus mostly on GD cover band kinda shows, which i dont really view as being in the same wheelhouse as most other cover bands since they tend to be more focused on playing  improvised music and acting as a gathering space for the local heads.

but the proliferation of cover bands makes sense to me. concerts these days are super expensive and many of the most legendary figures from the 60s-80s are dead or no longer playing. most people are just casual music listeners - they latch onto whatever was popular when they were 15-25 years old and just listen to that for the rest of their life. most regular folks wont put the kind of time and effort into seeing shows that most of us do, so these kinds of cover band shows are probably pretty attractive to folks when the alternative is fighting the TM scalper bots for overpriced stadium tickets or getting assraped on stubhub.

if youre just an average suburban dad who listens to the kind of average 70s-80s rock that gets played on your local classic rock FM station, you wont have all the options for seeing shows that people like us have, with tons of different jambands playing shows of varying sizes all over the country, and other genres we commonly cross pollinate with, like jazz, bluegrass or experimental/psych rock. if most all you listen to is popular 80s hair metal bands, your options for shows are basically an expensive AF real def lepard show or a corny AF def lepard cover band.

the local venue here is full of it...i saw a foreigner tribute that was sold out in the $60 range....

Our local theater books this crap more than half the shows they present. Foreigner, bad company, ac/dc, led zep, gd, Beatles, Pink Floyd, etc. The same half assed recycled top 40 cover bands over and over every year. It's become so predictable.

It's frustrating and to me it really just seems like laziness and a total lack of creativity or vision on the part of the booking manager.

I used to be dead set against tribute acts of any kind. Hated the idea on any level. I mean they used to be goofy and weird but were usually just Bizarro versions of the real thing.
 

But I've warmed to many of them and absolutely love a few nowadays. Let's face it we are entering an era where the OG artists are either gone or no longer able to perform. Or unwilling to revisit certain aspects of their careers. Artists are able to turn a pretty consistent dime while establishing their names and that has to count for something, learning the ropes of the trade as they go. 
 

take a look at this venue, they are making a career booking tributes and the occasional OG. I'd guess this is happening across the country 

https://rivieratheatre.org/upcoming-events/

oddly enough, I don't like any GD tribute bands and eye roll my way through every one of them I've seen. love the JGB ones tho. Strange I guess 

couple of my favorites are Brit Floyd(the best Floyd tribute out there) and Musical Box, which will knock your socks off if you are into Genesis and Total Mass Retain covering Yes material. 
 

I also dig a few bands that are carrying on with one or two OG members. Up til their recent retirement, the Zombies were fantastic and the Yardbirds don't play around much but Jim McCarty still drums for them, they are great live and Kenny Aaronson plays bass for em. There are also a few good touring Bowie alumni bands out there. Although Covid killed the momentum on them it seems 

I understand seeing a tribute act of a band you never saw & cannot see.

That would have been the Talking Heads for me.  
 

There's lots of new music all around.  

From groups with less than 20 yrs of sound. 

I never liked "popular 80s hair metal bands" back then. And can totally ignore their pretenders.

We have more tribute band shows than real headliner shows here, along with bands that no longer have an original member. They are now having tribute band festivals, I saw one advertised in Key West and one in The Tampa area 

Whatever brings people out to drink the beer and have.a good time is good for business, and the folks that go. Some people like predictability. And if that allows the venue to take a chance on some up and comer acts, all the better.  It's hard to run a live music venue these days. And as far as "bands", there just aren't as many new musicians coming up in that format- a lot of solo, or electronic, or other formats, but not as many "guitar rock" bands as there used to be. There aren't a whole lot of "new frontiers" in the 4 or 5-piece rock format anymore, so getting enough acts week in and week out all doing something original is probably impossible.

it's totally the thing now

I'm never against someone performing live music whether it's an original piece a cover or a tribute. If nothing else, it has given local artists a boost as people are getting live performances and often these "tributes" are local or regional in nature. Almost every one of them has "their own" material or "other gig" that this gets them exposure(and some income ) for. How can anyone be against that? 

It's a huge business now as you have an older crowd that grew up in the "classic rock" era and their kids are grown and they want to go and see this stuff. The younger crowd doesn't love going to see live bands anymore. The theater size venues are loaded up with touring tribute bands.

Where I live even the local bars that have bands are all classic rock (which includes the 90's bands by the way now) and the crowd is older. There's really nobody in their 20's at these places and most people are at least in their 40's and typically much older. The one exception are the GD cover bands. Yes, they get an older crowd but there are some younger kids at those gigs as well. 

Cover band > Tribute act? Sounds like a distinction without a difference.

I'd say a cover is when an act that plays a song originally performed by another whereas a tribute is an act that performs a show meant to emulate another band's performance or material

If Stinkfoot orchestra ever comes by, they are well worth seeing.  $20 for a 14 member band, very talented, original Zappa members.....they do Zappa justice.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfBMPXBHaA4&ab_channel=TheStinkfootOrche...

>>>Hardly any original acts for the foreseeable future.   

We're working on the redesign here of an arena in the burbs and it's all tribute acts.  I was excited that I could back stage to any show through the owner until I saw the list of bands.   Oh well.   Still good clients, and glad someone is enjoying the music

I can't help but feel like part of the reason for this is because TM has so many of the "real" bands and venues locked up

No hate for venues who book these acts, so long as it's not at the expense or taking the place of "real" bands

The Atomic Punks (with David Lee Ralph and Satchel) were the best non-gd tribute band I ever saw

Turn The Page - Tribute to Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band

Super Diamond

Our House 'The Music of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Learning To Fly - A Tom Petty Tribute

Mirage: Tribute to Fleetwood Mac

Wild Child - Doors Tribute

In The Air Tonight

Shine On - The Live Pink Floyd Experience

All Fired Up - A Pat Benatar Tribute

Ronstadt Revival

Tribute to Oingo Boingo

Dead Man's Party

Queen Nation - Queen Re-Imagined Symphonic Rock Show

Kids of Charlemagne - Steely Dan Tribute

The Winehouse Experience

YYNOT - A Tribute to RUSH

Tribute to Jimmy Buffett - Buffett Beach

Classic Albums Live: David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust

Start Making Sense - Talking Heads

Steely Dead - Yep GD and Steely Dan blended

Is Dread Zeppelin a cover band, or a tribute act?

or both? Or neither?

its always kind of puzzled me

Awful.

Death of creativity, death of the future.

Great venue, State Theater in Falls Church, VA - heard Jimmy Herring, Victor Vooten, Pat Metheny in there - pretty much solid tributes now.

Make new music!

Looking at the four billion Dead cover bands too.

not a cover or tribute but I think this points to some of the reasons why they exist: I was talking to Robert Hunter before a show once(about our mutual love of Townes VZ) and when I remarked about playing some of lesser known solo stuff, his reply was "I'd love to but the majority of fans come to hear the music they know " 

Hunter is no doubt correct in a way, but his statement would seem to overlook the fact that the GD is best known for making new music in the moment. Yes, we love the familiar, but just as much we love how it can lead us to strange.

The California Maritime Academy in Vallejo (now part of the CSU system) used to have a free summer concert series.  One year we set up on a sunny afternoon with a couple beers and a blanket next to the Carquinez Strait, not knowing who was playing.  It turned out to be local PF tribute band House of Floyd.  Not exactly the most conducive environment for extended psychedelic rock suites, but I could hardly have been more blown away!  Astronomy Domine, Set The Controls, Careful With That Axe, the entire Atom Heart Mother suite, Echoes, much of DSOTM, Wish You Were Here, and Animals.  The most recent song they played was Comfortably Numb.  I couldn't believe it.  One of the very best free shows I've seen.

Speaking of free shows and tribute bands, we were driving through Angels Camp the other day, and I was reminded of Furthur at Mtn. Aire.  Those were the Saturday and Sunday "album shows", but they tacked on a free "Soundcheck" on Friday.  We didn't know what to expect.  What we got was a 2+ hour single set of top quality, well-rehearsed GD material.  Very worthy, and again, one of the very best free shows I've seen.

Growing up on 70's fm radio, they would play to death the same song for months. I understand that there are new generations who didn't get to see the original bands and are embracing  them now,  which is a great thing, but i can't help but feel if I was sick of it then, I definitely wouldn't pay to be sick of it now. I like moving forward. LOTS of great music out there. TETO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTFi1honXSQ

First 5 minutes sums up this whole ball of wax

Cheeeeeeeeeessseeeeeeeeee

Yea but then on the other hand you can get this...

https://youtu.be/q8xgqn04TOc?si=lugr90McOb8ubFdB

https://youtu.be/wg8_tA0KL3Y?si=lw_H_MXWFcpOmjWH

No, it... really isn't.

A night at the symphony is often like you describe, Ken, but there are also folks composing new orchestral music that gets performed too.

Our local symphony often features new works during the first program and a well known major piece for the second program. Recently for the second program, featuring Holsts The Planets, it was synchronized with the Astronomy dept from Cornell who utilized hi def images taken from their observatory. I guess we have original and tribute bands the same night here with the same musicians in each.
 

It's interesting to see so many not on the side of live performance just because it's not what they would want to see. 

It's simple: support original, indepedent music.

And when those same local artists are employed paying their bills through other  cover/ tribute gigs and the symphony, we are supposed to stay home? 

I guess it depends on your personal level of integrity and/or threshold for cringe. 

The symphony. lol. I love how often that comes up in these discussions. 

my kids and I are members and attend fairly regularly. They all are musicians(viola, piano, cello) and i keep them involved in the local arts scene. 

Cool. Hopefully that influences them to continue to seek out new musical adventures. A rare thing in this world. 

You guys big Penderecki fans? My favorite tribute acts are the Penderecki cover symphonies. 

I keep them exposed to everything I can knowing full well that some seeds will take root and others will not. Interesting with 3 kids, they all seem to gravitate to different things. The only thing they all seem to agree on is Little Feat. They all love Litte Feat

Both Joan Osborne and Al Schnier are doing separate Dylan tributes coming up soon. Both have pretty solid careers of their own. 

Me looking forward to my local Pendercki tribute symphony. 

https://youtu.be/i14GhylrjfY

>> Both Joan Osborne and Al Schnier are doing separate Dylan tributes coming up soon. 

there are also older musicians that still create great original music, tour constantly and play for a pretty small fee. Dave Alvin is in the $25-35 zone usually....his 3rd mind show here is $43.96...

Whatever happened to that guy who used to promote such quality gatherings as the Freddy Fender Festival? 

I think the important thing is that the live performance music scene is back to thriving on many different levels and we are back to having a lot of choices. It's hard to remember that just a few years ago, the entire planet went silent.

Silence is golden. 

https://www.facebook.com/ntsradiolive/videos/john-cage-performing-433-in...

If silence can be compared to a precious metal, it's because it's filled with ambient sounds.

Even  have a tribute act crossover....

Perhaps there is only one tribute band in all the land. They know all the songs from all the bands - have costume will travel.

Daryl Hall's place (Daryl's House) is 90% tribute bands.  Some of them sell out three nights in a row.  As much as I'd like to see more good bands so close to home, the reality is they are keeping the place in business.  Better than the alternative.  When they do get good bands (Karl Densons' Tiny Universe, The Motet, Max Creek, New Orleans Suspects, etc.) they just don't draw very well.  The tribute bands pay the bills and the real bands earn the cred.

https://darylshouseclub.com/shows/