Cover band and the real thing

[ric62]

Has a cover band opened for the band they do covers of? I have never heard of it happening although it might be daring for the both of them.

[Snowboarder Bo]

I found this one:

They Might Be Giants has occasionally played their own tribute band, opening for themselves as Sapphire Bullets and performing the album Flood from start to finish.

[NineToTheSky]

The Australian Pink Floyd played at David Gilmour's 50th birthday party.

[Jim's Son]

I don't know if this counts but I saw the Bob Dylan Rolling Thunder revue in the mid 1970s which had people such as Roger McQuinn (Byrds) and Joan Baez appearing before Zimmerman came out. Both had done a number of Dylan covers but didn't that night. The only song McQuinn did was his own "Chestnut Mare" and Baez did "Diamonds and Rust" and a couple others.

I remember some benefit concert on MTV in the 1980s when two people did "Everytime You go Away"-Paul Young and maybe Alison Moyet. In both cases it was still a shitty song.

[dzray]

Ex-Lion Tamers (With a young Jim DeRogatis) opened for Wire on tour back in 1987.

[Quasimodem]

In the film "A Mighty Wind" (one of my all-time favorites), The New Mainstreet Singers did a song which was a cover of The Folksmens' hit, "Never Did No Wanderin'" causing an argument among the group if they should go ahead and do their own song anyway. This was a case of the cover group sounding better than the originals.

If you are old enough to remember the "Hootenanny" shows, I highly recommend this film!

Q

[Biffy the Elephant Shrew]

A couple of sort-ofs:

When I saw Sparks circa 1982, Ron and Russell Mael opened for themselves in the persona of a lounge act, doing easy listening versions of Sparks songs. I don't remember what they called themselves, and I think they reversed roles: Ron singing and Russell playing the keyboard.

I saw a Van Morrison set where the first couple of songs were Van Morrison numbers sung by backing singer Brian Kennedy before Morrison himself appeared.