OK, that was funny.
Never heard of them. 
I asked Pete Townshend about this once:
Q: In the song “Mirror Door” you summon up Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven as spirits on the “other side”. Will rock and roll be remembered in 175 or 200 years? Will the music that you and your peers have created be performed live as classical music is today?
A: Of course some rock will be remembered. This is not an issue that really interests me. Tommy may be remembered. Who cares?
Sometimes, I’ll bet, Pete wishes they’d stuck with something less confusing like The High Numbers.
I’m betting there won’t be much demand for John Cage tribute bands in 200 years.
I heard that Townshend said that The Who is now the world’s most expensive Who cover band.
The Glenn Miller Orchestra is still playing long after its founder passed away. Likewise, the Count Basie Orchestra.
I certainly hope so, because I plan to start an Indigo Girls cover band someday. 
The Kodak Center locally is a 2500-seat auditorium. Not arena level, but still a major and active venue. Their listed schedule for the next few months includes:
The Fab Four performs The Beatles’ “Rubber Soul”
MANIA: The ABBA Tribute
A.J. Croce performs Croce Plays Croce
So Good! The Neil Diamond Experience
One Night of Tina: A Tina Turner Tribute Show
Postmodern Jukebox Life In The Past Lane World Tour
Stayin’ Alive: One Night of the Bee Gees
Tribute bands are doing great. Not Taylor Swift or Rolling Stones level, but really how many people are?
The real question is how long will these bands last once the Boomers fade away? I don’t go to tribute band concerts so I don’t know what the audiences are like but oldies bands tours attract mostly gray hairs. Will the next generations continue to fill their needs with substitutes? Can rap tribute bands even exist 50 years from now or is this genre too personal and too tied to individuals?
Postmodern Jukebox is something of an outlier on that list - they’re not a “tribute band” so much as a novelty act covering (mostly) recent pop songs in retro musical styles. I suspect their demo mainly skews toward Gen X and those younger.
Yeah, I went by the description, which was ambiguous. Even if you exclude them, though, that’s still six tribute bands in four months in a medium-sized market.
I remember Sha Na Na was successful in covering 50’s doo wop. But they added their own showmanship. They were a unique band that happened to cover old music. They even hosted their own tv show for several years.
I could see a modern group that sang Disco hits but put their own spin on their band. It might work now. I’m not certain audiences in 2100 would be interested. The harmony in the Bee Gees and Abba might interest a future audience.
I think 50’s doo wop could be popular in 2100. The harmony is so unique. You don’t hear it much in other music.
It’s already happening: http://www.reosurvivor.com/
I sort of doubt that say… once Loverboy’s original fan base is dead, that there will be much of a market for a Loverboy-specific cover band, but a cover band that plays a variety of songs by similar-ish bands like Cheap Trick, REO Speedwagon, Eddie Money, 38 Special, Night Ranger, etc… will probably do ok.
I mean, it’s not like younger people don’t like this sort of music. Against all logic and good sense, my 9 year old son loves classic rock/album rock as played on the radio these days. I suspect he would be the kind who would go to a show like that when he’s old enough.
Most celebrities have a limited shelf life once they’ve died. Elvis’ popularity has certainly waned in the decades since he passed. Not counting some of his Christmas songs, I cannot remember the last time I heard him on the radio. Of course he’s a special case given just what a huge star he was, so he’s going to be remembered for longer than most. Even today, there are probably younger people who know Elvis from Lilo & Stitch and the more recent biopic, but his position as a pop culture icon is fading. Even Marilyn Monroe is going to eventually fade into obscurity. I’d wager most people still know who she is and what she looks like, but how many of them have seen one of her movies?
I expect you’ll find some songs written with the last few decades are covered by artists over the next few decades. Artists are still releasing their version of “You Are My Sunshine” and that song’s at least 83 years old at this point. I’ve got to imagine someone besides Primus will cover “The Devil Came Down to Georgia” at some point in the future. I don’t believe there will be a great demand for specific tribute bands to Queen, The Beatles, Meatloaf, etc., etc. They might exist, but they’ll be niche at best.
Taking this a bit further, I did some research. A venue not too far from us lists 134 upcoming live shows.
If you define a tribute band as covering a single artist (or perhaps a couple of artists) then as a percentage of all shows at the venue (music, comedy, plays, panto, dance, psychics, whatever) tribute acts account for 28% of all shows.
If you define a tribute band as covering a single artist, group of artists or genre (eg, '80s music, Country Stars etc) then as a percentage of all shows at the venue, tribute acts account for 36% of all shows.
Actual musicians performing their own music: 4%. Actually 4.48, so it’s an unkind rounding; on the other hand, several of those original artists are ancient and living off past glories (and perhaps with not much in common with the original band.)
This is the UK not the US, but interesting, no? I think this is a huge problem in UK music - if you are young, original and looking for a venue, you’re being crowded out.
So to address the OP’s question - over here, it has already happened, in spades.
j
For the record, I chose a venue reasonably nearby whose listings I routinely check, and whose web page layout is helpful for this sort of analysis - Dorking Halls {29 Sept} if you want to check it yourself. If I have made minor errors in data collection, I can only apologize; my head was spinning by the end. Classical and certain other gigs (Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain?!) were not counted as tributes or originals as they appear not to fit either category.
ETA - for exactness, the pantomime was listed once on the webpage, but I assume there are probably 20 or 30 performances of it.
People who enjoy the music of, say, Loverboy could fall into any of several categories. The categories overlap, but just because someone falls into one of them does not necessarily mean they fall into others:
- People who enjoy (at least some of) Loverboy’s studio recordings.
- People who enjoy (or would enjoy) seeing the original lineup live and in person.
- People who enjoy (or would enjoy) a video or audio recording of a performance by the original lineup.
- People who enjoy (or would enjoy) a live performance by a band who are not the original lineup of Loverboy but who look and sound a lot like them and to a large degree replicate the experience of seeing the original band in concert.
- People who enjoy (or would enjoy) seeing/hearing Loverboy’s music performed live, even by some other band who don’t particularly resemble Loverboy.
A tribute band would appeal to people in category 4, but there would have to be enough of such people for a tribute band to be viable. A cover band would appeal to people in category 5.
Classical music is widely used from ads to movies largely because it is free to use, while also very recognizable.
Anyone who hints that the Beatles didn’t have a lasting influence on modern culture doesn’t know what they are talking about.
I agree that the Beatles had a huge influence on modern culture and that their music is still enjoyed by many people today, even by the children (including mine) and some grandchildren of those who listened to them in the 60s. However, I don’t think their songs will have the same lasting power as classical music, which has survived for more than 200 years.
This is not the Beatles’ fault, of course. Popular music in general tends to have a limited shelf-life. While many classical compositions gain more appreciation after the composers’ death, most pop music fades away after a few generations.
There is no doubt that some popular songs will endure for a long time (and the Beatles created great melodies), especially when they enter the public domain and are free to use, but I predict they will be few and far between as time marches on. We have some popular songs from the early 20th century that remain familiar to us now, such as “Over There” by George M. Cohan, and “Swanee” by George Gershwin, but they are mostly regarded as novelty songs.
Yes and no. No, you don’t hear his songs on the radio much (unless you’re listening to stations or feeds that specialize in the '50s or the '70s), but you could say the same thing about nearly every music act which peaked in the pre-Beatles era. But, there are a ton of tribute acts, particularly in Vegas, that consistently draw well.
My niece was, for a brief time, married to one of the more successful Elvis tribute artists, and he was part of a tour which featured three different Elvis tribute singers (1950s, 1960s “Comeback Special,” and 1970s “Fat Elvis / Suit of Lights”). When the tour came through the Chicago area, we went to see it – it sold out the Rosemont Theater (capacity about 4,400), and the crowd was really into it. There were a number of young women there, who were dressed as Priscilla Presley, and all of them were born long after Elvis died in '77.
Also, the 2022 film about him finished in 12th place overall for the U.S. box office that year, grossing $151 million in the U.S. It was the top-grossing film that wasn’t either a superhero movie, a CGI movie, or a dinosaur movie.
Elvis is still very dead, but he is also still a significant cultural icon.
Now I’m imagining Baby Got Back set to the tune of Ode to Joy.
I like big butts, I like big butts, I like big butts and can’t lie
Other brothers, other brothers, other brothers can’t deny