Cover/Tribute Bands

Interested in hearing what you guys think about cover or tribute bands. I've heard plenty of bands that will once in a while cover another bands song and throw their own crazy vibe on it to create a differently toned song, but there are also other bands that come out and literally only play music of their favorite band. Sometimes these guys will come on stage dressed up as them with a band name which is often a play on words or named after a song or album title, and simply perform that bands music to live their lifestyle.

In all fairness, bands that usually are covered are too old to go on tour or are too famous to allow ticket prices steep lower than $60, but this draws attention to whether or not you pay to listen to the music, or if you are paying to reward the people that created it. I'm more in favor of the latter. What do you say?

40oz said:

Sometimes these guys will come on stage dressed up as them

Such as The Musical Box. It's a great way to relive the original 1970s Genesis shows.
http://www.themusicalbox.net/

Usually(*) cover bands are the ones that genuinely love music the most. I'd say half my current music collection is amateur covers of various songs I love.

Of course, I have to say usually, because there's a few that just do it to milk money. But they're usually talentless and die quick anyways.

I see the appeal in watching them, but not playing in them.

eargosedown said:

amateur covers

this (pt.2) turned into this. how he manages to translate the song to one acoustic guitar is beyond me.

Some really good things have been said about The Spirit of Pink Floyd.

The last year of my life musically has essentially been all covers, but I consider them more like parodies or style transfusions than straight covered songs. I think if you bring something to the recording that makes it different you're essentially performing a different song. Grace Jones is a fantastic singer and Warm Leatherette is one of my favorite albums and it is all covers, none of which sound a bit like the originals. However, the idea of a band that just covers (read: imitates) another famous band's music to me sounds pretty pointless.

Check out some of mine along with some other bullshit.

I wanted to see that one band cover The Wall, and also Zappa Plays Zappa, but never got the chance when either was touring. Other than that, I've no real interest in that sort of thing, unless you count symphonies. :P

Having worked in concert venues of various sizes for the past 8 years, I generally can't stand cover or tribute bands (tribute bands being the worse of the two because of the sad worship and lack of original identity the members tend to possess. I can think of 2 tribute bands off the top of my head whose members changed their accent and off-stage persona to that of the band member they were, I suppose, mimicking/ method-acting as.)
That being said, while I am hardly a fan of Pink Floyd, seeing the Easy-Star Allstars was an awesome experience. I am a huge fan of Radiohead's Ok Computer and The Beatles Sgt. Peppers though, which is what definitely made the experience for me.

Not the best sound quality but you get the idea:

Mr. Freeze said:

I see the appeal in watching them, but not playing in them.

I think it's the other way around. I'd rather play covers of my favorite songs than watch a bunch of losers perform them. *shrug*

eargosedown said:

Usually(*) cover bands are the ones that genuinely love music the most.

What the hell are you talking about

darkreaver said:

What the hell are you talking about

Well from what I've gathered from most people's experiences talking to the members of cover bands, is that the members of the cover band are playing a band's music because the original members aren't around to play them. They play the music because they love it and they perform for the fans so that they can go out to shows to listen to their music even though the actual band isn't on tour anymore.

I'm still concerned about that though. I mean its easy to say that cover bands are talentless douche bags who can't make anything original. One could argue that it certainly requires talent to replay someone elses music to the note, and that there are people who can play music but not compose it. To me, however, I feel like the ability to compose music is a heavy portion of what makes the band. It's like a metal band performing without a drummer. People who can play instruments and perform in cover bands are scraping money off the members that played the music and composed it. It doesn't sound right to me when people value a band's music more so than the members of the band that created it.

I like bands doing covers of other bands' works, provides for some interesting versions of said song. Bands dedicated to doing covers, however... unless they're doing something different and interesting with the music (e.g. Northern Kings, doing orchestral/power metal covers of music that isn't in that genre) I don't see the point. If I want to listen to a song by band X I can simply listen to that song without having to hear band Y playing an exact copy of it.

Personally I`m not a fan of cover-bands. Well, of course its cool hearing a song you really like performed live (in this case, by a cover band), but thats as far as it goes for me. On the other hand, if I want to hear Beatles songs live, I cant, unless there is a cover band performing them, so in that case its OK I guess.

I really dont get what eargoesdown meant though :P

The German Warhammer is a Hellhammer tribute/inspired band and I happen to like both because of the musical style with the guitars. And yes, Warhammer has original material.

It all varies from genre to genre.