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| Project Pink. Photo courtesy ProjectPinkBand.com. |
It may be the understatement of the year to say there is no shortage of cover bands in Milwaukee. I know you, like I, have had many a promising Friday night crushed the second you walk into a bar to a butchered version of Lit’s “My Own Worst Enemy” screaming from the P.A.
As a guy who has played in my share of original bands over the years, I often think of cover bands as my nemeses. Like most original musicians out there, I tend to see the cover band as a bit of a cop out, as a refuge for lost musical souls who have either given up on the creative process or shunned it altogether for the ease of getting drunk 40-year-old women to dance to a BoDeans song.
That is why I was so perplexed by my recent revelation of feelings toward the cover band’s cousin, the tribute band: relative indifference. That’s right, I don’t hate tribute bands. Actually, if it’s done well, I kind of enjoy sitting back and watching a group of musicians attempt to recreate the magic once made by a band that they love.
For those of you who don’t know (and who haven’t been to Summerfest in recent history), the tribute band is a hybrid of sorts. Like its unholy brethren, the tribute band makes its money playing another band’s music, but instead chooses to focus on just one act. To varying degrees, the band does its best to emulate the dress, stage presence, instrument tone and attitude of some of the greatest bands in music history.
So what is it about the tribute band that makes the concept more palatable than the cover band? It’s a mystery to me.
Maybe it’s just that the intentions seem more pure. When you decide to devote yourself to paying tribute to one band, there is obviously something about that group that inspires and motivates you. You’re not just learning the chord pattern to Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life” the night before a show, but instead dedicating yourself to the idea of fully immersing yourself in the embodiment of a great musician.
Or maybe it’s something in me. Maybe I’m so haunted by the fact that I will never get to see Led Zeppelin live that I’m willing to suspend reality for a night and on some level believe that the 23-year-old college kid playing his Epiphone Les Paul through his Crate half stack is somehow channeling Jimmy Paige.
But whatever the reason, rest assured that there are a plethora of tribute bands based right here in Milwaukee and Wisconsin that are taking their impression act on the road regularly. Don’t be surprised to see me out at one of these shows in the coming months. Well, probably not at the AC/DC one, but you know what I mean.
Gabriel Sanchez presents the Prince Experience: Prince
Saturday, Sept. 17 at Bay View Bash
Light Up: Styx
Saturday, Sept. 10 at St. Gregory the Great Festival
No Quarter: Led Zeppelin
Saturday, Oct. 15 at Shank Hall
Project Pink: Pink Floyd
Saturday, Sept. 24 at North Star Casino
Razor’s Edge: AC/DC
Saturday, Sept. 24 at Shank Hall
Substitute: The Who
Saturday, Sept. 24 at Shank Hall
U2 Zoo: U2
Saturday, Sept. 10 at Shank Hall
