admin
22 December 2023
Picture this: your all-time favorite band, back together again, and playing a concert right before your very eyes! Dead members resurrected, old rifts mended, and ancient musicians returned to their younger iconic selves. What is this? Witchcraft? Human cloning experiments gone horribly wrong? Hell no! Living like talentless leeches sucking the success-filled blood of people who really paid their dues, it's a tribute band!
A tribute band may temporarily fill the void in your heart left by bands whose members have long since expired. But like generic M&M's, they pale in comparison to the real thing. With costumes, light shows, and note-for-note recreations of all your favorite songs, the tribute band launches the pathetic meter into the stratosphere.
But where do they draw the line? Does the playful stage banter delivered in terrible mock accents continue off-stage? Do they still refer to each other by the musician's name they portray, like an egotistical Val Kilmer, even while sitting around in a Denny's hours after the gig? Do they simply pick their favorite era to photocopy, or do they follow the evolution of the band? Beginning with the innocent "Love, Love Me Do", do they later experiment with drugs onstage, screaming, "I am the walrus, goo-goo ga-joob" until a talentless Asian woman drags one of them away? Do they reenact assassinations and drug overdoses? Does La Bamba, the Ritchie Valens tribute band, tour in an airplane? Do Beach Boys fakers-- My Fat Daughter Had Her Stomach Stapled And Now She Thinks She's Hot (But She's Not)-- have their pseudo-Brian Wilson get into a straightjacket for a portion of the show? Does Another Little Piece of My Heart Now, Baby vomit at the end of their performance every night?
These are the questions that haunt me. While everyone else shuts their eyes, tightly tapping their toes and dancing, I seem to be the only one who notices that "Ringo Starr" is a short Mexican woman. That "David Lee Roth" is so chubby he can't even get off the ground when he sings "Jump".
And don't even get me started on the tribute band groupies. You know they're out there, screaming and gyrating like it's still 1987 and they don't have six kids at home. Honey, if you can't give the real Bret Michaels a blowjob at this point in his career, give it up!
A tribute band may temporarily fill the void in your heart left by bands whose members have long since expired. But like generic M&M's, they pale in comparison to the real thing. With costumes, light shows, and note-for-note recreations of all your favorite songs, the tribute band launches the pathetic meter into the stratosphere.
But where do they draw the line? Does the playful stage banter delivered in terrible mock accents continue off-stage? Do they still refer to each other by the musician's name they portray, like an egotistical Val Kilmer, even while sitting around in a Denny's hours after the gig? Do they simply pick their favorite era to photocopy, or do they follow the evolution of the band? Beginning with the innocent "Love, Love Me Do", do they later experiment with drugs onstage, screaming, "I am the walrus, goo-goo ga-joob" until a talentless Asian woman drags one of them away? Do they reenact assassinations and drug overdoses? Does La Bamba, the Ritchie Valens tribute band, tour in an airplane? Do Beach Boys fakers-- My Fat Daughter Had Her Stomach Stapled And Now She Thinks She's Hot (But She's Not)-- have their pseudo-Brian Wilson get into a straightjacket for a portion of the show? Does Another Little Piece of My Heart Now, Baby vomit at the end of their performance every night?
These are the questions that haunt me. While everyone else shuts their eyes, tightly tapping their toes and dancing, I seem to be the only one who notices that "Ringo Starr" is a short Mexican woman. That "David Lee Roth" is so chubby he can't even get off the ground when he sings "Jump".
And don't even get me started on the tribute band groupies. You know they're out there, screaming and gyrating like it's still 1987 and they don't have six kids at home. Honey, if you can't give the real Bret Michaels a blowjob at this point in his career, give it up!
artid
1592
Old Image
6_1_tribute.jpg
issue
vol 6 - issue 01 (sep 2003)
section
entertainmental