Your experiences of playing in a tribute band.

[Fastra]

15 hours ago, peteb said:

First gig for the Magnum tribute band (A Storyteller’s Night) last night, supporting the excellent Backstreet Thunder in Rotherham.

All went really well: great crowd reaction, lots of positive comments (both from the audience on the night and on social media) and quite a few came specially to see us (some from as far away as South Wales and from Co Durham).

Clip of ‘How Far Jerusalem’, filmed by a student of the guitar player – a bit up close and personal but gives an idea of how it went…

 

 

Just gave you page a like for that - brilliant job!

 

Edited April 1, 2019 by Fastra

[Crusoe]

I saw the Aussie Pink Floyd many years ago. They were excellent and as far as I know actually use a lot of Pink Floyd's old gear.

How do tribute acts work with regards to royalties to the original bands?

[cetera]

33 minutes ago, Crusoe said:

I saw the Aussie Pink Floyd many years ago. They were excellent and as far as I know actually use a lot of Pink Floyd's old gear.

How do tribute acts work with regards to royalties to the original bands?

 

The venues you play at have PRS licenses. 3 - 4.2% of gross box office goes to PRS (along with the set list the band performed) and this is then paid out to the songwriters/publishers.

[Crusoe]

17 minutes ago, cetera said:

 

The venues you play at have PRS licenses. 3 - 4.2% of gross box office goes to PRS (along with the set list the band performed) and this is then paid out to the songwriters/publishers.

Thanks Cetera. I knew that venues had to have the PRS license but wasn't sure if royalties were paid solely through them.

[Stub Mandrel]

A question for you 'tribute' folks.

I know many bands don't play live as faithfully to the recordings as some tributes do.

So how do you approach this, do you aim to copy the records or the/a live performance or just capture the 'essence' of the band (if you know what I mean?)

Edited April 1, 2019 by Stub Mandrel

[dmccombe7]

8 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

A question for you 'tribute' folks.

I know many bands don't play live as faithfully to the recordings as some tributes do.

So how do you approach this, do you aim to copy the records or the/a live performance or just capture the 'essence' of the band (if you know what I mean?)

In past tribute bands we mostly copied the original recordings but where a live recording of the band was more famous we did that version but generally speaking it was the original album songs or singles if they were released.

Think there's something to be said for capturing the essence no matter what version you do tho.

Its an interesting question and i'm curious to see what comes back.

Dave

[cetera]

What Dave said.
We always played the 'definitive' version of the song, be it the original recorded version or a later liver version that everyone considers has that 'certain something'. i.e. energy, dynamics etc or arrangement that built on the recorded version.

[peteb]

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

A question for you 'tribute' folks.

I know many bands don't play live as faithfully to the recordings as some tributes do.

So how do you approach this, do you aim to copy the records or the/a live performance or just capture the 'essence' of the band (if you know what I mean?)

Yes and no.

What we've done so far for the Magnum tribute is to take the arrangement from a live performance from the 'classic' period as a template, but not stick slavishly to it. For example, the arrangement for Midnight just didn't work, so we combined the live version with the single one. 

As far as I'm concerned it's a tribute rather than a copy and I've approached the bass parts as what I would play if I actually got the call to play for Magnum. If you saw the clip I posted above, the guitar player very obviously isn't playing the same part for the solo as Tony Clarkin, but hopefully it is sympathetic to the original. 

[Paul S]

With my Bon Jovi tribute we also model our set on either a particular live version or copy and paste bits from different live versions into some songs.  The game plan being to play extended versions of the bigger hits rather than fill the set with shorter studio versions of more obscure stuff.  I don't believe yer average Bon Jovi fan is particularly discerning, tbh.   

[Guest MoJo]

On 23/01/2019 at 09:58, cetera said:

However, after you've done it for the length of time I did, you look across the stage and see a bunch of tired, ageing guys paying tribute to an even older group of guys and realise that it would be nice to go out on top so I stopped. They have continued on and are proving my point for leaving...
 

I didn't realise you'd stopped playing with Dressed to Kill. I saw them advertised at a recent Wilko Johnson gig at the Robin 2 and was telling my friends how authentic a Gene Simmons you were, even down to you ordering your boots from the same people that made Gene's (as I recall). I'm glad that I saw them in their heyday.

[dmccombe7]

1 hour ago, MoJo said:

I didn't realise you'd stopped playing with Dressed to Kill. I saw them advertised at a recent Wilko Johnson gig at the Robin 2 and was telling my friends how authentic a Gene Simmons you were, even down to you ordering your boots from the same people that made Gene's (as I recall). I'm glad that I saw them in their heyday.

Yep agree the nearest you could get to the real Gene IMO To be fair the full band were excellent. Haven't seen them since Cetera left tho.

Dave

[casapete]

20 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

A question for you 'tribute' folks.

I know many bands don't play live as faithfully to the recordings as some tributes do.

So how do you approach this, do you aim to copy the records or the/a live performance or just capture the 'essence' of the band (if you know what I mean?)

We aim to capture the original studio recoerdings, although look to recent live stuff to help with some things - for example, how to end songs that faded out on the original versions. We think most of our audience will identify best with the hits they know from years of listening / radio play etc - give 'em what they want! 😊

[Stub Mandrel]

Interesting comments folks 🙂

[walshy]

22 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

A question for you 'tribute' folks.

I know many bands don't play live as faithfully to the recordings as some tributes do.

So how do you approach this, do you aim to copy the records or the/a live performance or just capture the 'essence' of the band (if you know what I mean?)

So I am with Fu Fighters. We take a bit of both using the bones of the album versions but look at the arrangements live as these seem to work better, more crowd participation and stuff with our 'Dave'. Its pretty bloody good fun to be honest and cant wait for Festival season to start end of this month, 30 + all over the UK so its pretty cool and always a big crowd too which helps!

[NoRhino]

Which act has the most bands playing 'tribute' to it?   I did a quick count of Quo bands today and reckon there are at least 20 in the British Isles.

[cetera]

6 minutes ago, NoRhino said:

Which act has the most bands playing 'tribute' to it?   I did a quick count of Quo bands today and reckon there are at least 20 in the British Isles.

 

I worked on a tribute 'project' for PRS a few years ago and the results were the obvious contenders....

Beatles, Queen, Abba.... followed by Stones, Zep, Who etc....

[bloodandtearsuk]

I'd say AC/DC is up there.. loads of them..  I've played for 3 alone..  The ACDC Experience as Angus.. and Back In Black and now ACE/DC both on bass.

Previously I was in Metalleeka for 8 years as Kirk Hammett.. 

Done right, a tribute band can open some very big doors.. it can guarantee an enthusiastic crowd.. improve the pay..  overall a lot of fun.

[peteb]

A lot of U2 and Foo Fighters tributes around 

[Stub Mandrel]

27 minutes ago, bloodandtearsuk said:

I'd say AC/DC is up there.. loads of them..  I've played for 3 alone..  The ACDC Experience as Angus.. and Back In Black and now ACE/DC both on bass.

Previously I was in Metalleeka for 8 years as Kirk Hammett.. 

Done right, a tribute band can open some very big doors.. it can guarantee an enthusiastic crowd.. improve the pay..  overall a lot of fun.

One of my brothers was Angus in a band that had the iterations TNT and High Voltage (originality of names is not a strong suite for AC/DC tributes...)

Sadly I don't have a pic of him in uniform.

[tauzero]

I suspect Elvis is the most tributed.

[bloodandtearsuk]

1 hour ago, tauzero said:

I suspect Elvis is the most tributed.

in a band context??

[Stub Mandrel]

3 hours ago, tauzero said:

I suspect Elvis is the most tributed.

There was the wonderful Peter Singh " I don't smoke dope, I don't drink bourbon, all I want to do is shake my turban", now retired.

[ricksterphil]

On 01/04/2019 at 15:18, Stub Mandrel said:

A question for you 'tribute' folks.

I know many bands don't play live as faithfully to the recordings as some tributes do.

So how do you approach this, do you aim to copy the records or the/a live performance or just capture the 'essence' of the band (if you know what I mean?)

We try to capture the 'essence' as we're a David Bowie Tribute with 2 guitars, no keys and no sax. For Pretty Things one of our guitarists plays her interpretation of the piano intro and outro....seems to work

...and our lead singer is female so we're capturing the essence for every song in reality

[tauzero]

3 hours ago, bloodandtearsuk said:

in a band context??

The question was "which act". As it happens, a couple of former bandmates are part of the backing band for an Elvis tribute, so there are Elvis tribute bands as well as Elvis karaoke tributes.