Oh, by the way, which one’s Brit?
Exactly. They do it so well, what difference does it make?
I hear Brit Floyd has A few original songs out.
Wish I was there
Mammals
Porky
Careful with that hatchet, Elmer
Related thread inspired by this one: Identifiable Rock Guitarists By Their "Sound"? - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board
I just started watching the US showing on PBS - Brit Floyd:Live at the Red Rocks.
Sounds great!
Unless your home setup is spectacular, you’re not getting the volume or the visuals.
I shoot concerts by the School of Rock, and the traditional first show for new locations is The Wall. I’ve heard the guitar parts creditably played by a ten year old.
Some of us like music from bygone eras. I was born in 1979; it’s not like I got to see some of the great acts of the 70s. Tribute bands are as close as I am ever going to get. And some of them are really pretty great.
Sure, I can listen to the albums at any time at home, and I do, but it’s nowhere near the same experience. Just the addition of a huge, dedicated audience surrounding you alone creates an incredible energy that just doesn’t exist with a video. Plus, video footage from concerts at that time is spotty at best, and the accompanying sound generally isn’t great.
I recently saw a Pink Floyd tribute band (Think Floyd). It wasn’t quite as involved as the linked video’s performance, but they were professionals - strong lighting effects, good equipment, three background female vocalists, the whole thing. I really don’t think a few guys and a van are really going to recreate a Pink Floyd experience in any believable way.
I’m also a huge fan of a prog-era Genesis tribute band (The Musical Box). They’ve been doing actual reproduction-level work, not just “tribute” work. They researched the shows, and they try to reproduce them as closely as possible. They do an outstanding job (even according to the original band members). Not just sound, but original costume, effects, only using set lists used in the original concerts, even right down to learning to mimic the movements and personal eccentricities of the performers (their Peter Gabriel is scary good at this, and is incredibly convincing in voice, appearance, and mannerisms). What’s more, with modern technology improvements (carefully hidden), I’m told that the end result is actually improved – for example, a lot of Gabriel’s theatrics had unreliable effects or had negative results on his vocals (cough cough Slipperman costume). The Musical Box has done this since 2000; they’ve had way more chances to work out the kinks than the original band ever did. Phil Collins has seen them and said “they played it better than we did”.
I guess I think of it this way: historical recreations have been a ‘thing’ for thousands of years. Some are more accurate than others, but recreating things has been with us an awfully long time (I mean, they were already recreating famous battles in the Roman gladiatorial arenas). Would you find it perplexing that people might want to watch something like a Shakespearean play done in period dress, in the rebuilt Globe Theater, done as close to the original as we know how? And others might want to see someone take that material and do it again, but not as an exact recreation? Why is this different? If you have an emotional connection to performance art, then wanting to see it performed is completely understandable, even if the original artists aren’t available.
I’ve seen these guys more than once, and they are spot on musically. I was particularly impressed when the lass doing the backing vocals (and, of course, lead vocals on “The Great Gig in the Sky”) also picked up the saxophone for “Us and Them”.
I do get some slagging off from friends for liking going to see the occasional tribute band, but there’s all sorts of reasons to love them:
- it’s the closest you’ll get to experiencing bands which are no longer all alive, no longer together or no longer touring
- you get to enjoy music you know and love being played live in small venues at cheap prices*
There’s a huge range of tribute bands out there. Some of them just go for reproducing the sound, whereas some go much further in trying to recreate the look and the staging.
As a huge Led Zeppelin fan who was just too young to have caught them live, I’ve seen three different Zep tributes, and absolutely love these guys: Letz Zep
*The exception is the Australian Pink Floyd show, who now play arenas and charge “real” band prices. I saw them last summer at Jodrell Bank, where they used the Lovell radio telescope as an additional big screen. It was pretty awesome. Photos.
What the hell does DSOM mean?
If you want to get people’s opinions make yourself understood.
Dark Side Of the Moon
Pretty familiar to Pink Floyd fans …
WYWH 