Basically, who is the essential member of a given band?
Fill in the brackets:
I want to go to the [band name] concert, but not if [band member] is not there!
I want to go to the Guns ‘N’ Roses concert, but not if Slash is not there!
I don’t give a fuck about Axl.
I don’t want to go to any concert if the original singer isn’t there.
The only time I’ve run into this was Further Seems Forever without Chris Carrabba. But I saw them anyway and the only disappointment was they only played two songs from the Carrabba era, the actual singer of them was not as important.
I want to go to the Sublime concert, but not if Bradley Nowell is not there!
Sublime is touring. Without Nowell, what is the point??
You can’t be serious. GNR is not GNR without both of them AND Duff.
Agreed. I’d rather see his son Jakob’s band LAW.
I’d like to see Pixies but not without Kim Deal.
Yeah, I saw that the other day. They’re touring as “Sublime with Rome,” and they’re basically just a Sublime cover band, except with the actual bassist from Sublime, and not including Sublime drummer Bud Gaugh, who did play with them for a while but quit because “It was really good for the first few months, after that, it just felt wrong. Not playing the songs but playing them with the name Sublime, without Brad.”
If they want to still play, fine, but make something new! Unless they can’t. They probably can’t.
But yeah, it’s an overt, shameless cash grab and I don’t like it one bit.
Duff I’ll give you, but I still don’t give a shit about Axl.
Compare any of Slash’s Snakepit stuff or even Velvet Revolver with Chinese Democracy. Which one sounds at least somewhat like classic G’n’R, and which one sounds like someone listened to “Pretty Hate Machine” a billion times and then made a piss-poor impersonation of it, but at least 15 years too late for anyone to care?
.
That’s because it didn’t have Axl, Slash and Duff on it 
I do(did) like Velvet Revolver, but GNR it was not.
The question at the core of this thread is at the heart of 90% of all disagreements between Yes fans. 
Steely Dan, Walter Becker.
Fleetwood Mac…Lindsay Buckingham.
The others are fine, but I’d have to see Lindsay to make it worth my while.
Fleetwood Mac’s a tough one, as they all seem essential to the band.
Saw them last month, with a combination of Mike Campbell and Neil Finn standing in for Buckingham. Never seen them, or Buckingham before so I can’t compare but it was a good show. Stevie Nicks can’t even get in the vicinity of the high notes anymore, but still a good show. It did get a little awkward with Neil Finn singing Lindsay’s lead vocals, but I understand they can’t just not play “Don’t Stop,” “The Chain,” “Hold Me,” or “Go Your Own Way.”
There was a nice tribute to Tom Petty in the encore, with lots of photos of Petty with members of FM from the 70s on; I didn’t realize they’d played together so much.
Queen without Freddie. I remember when Adam Lambert started getting really popular due to American Idol. I can’t recall if he sang a Queen song or if it was just speculated that he would do well singing with them. The Academy Awards show proved that’s not the case.
The Guess Who without Burton Cummings was pretty damned dull. The tunes are still great but it wasn’t even close to the same.
10,000 Maniacs tours without Natalie Merchant.
Preach it, brother!
The Rolling Stones without Bill Wyman.
Yeah, I know, Daryl is better, and maybe it’s just me, but it ain’t the Stones without Bill.
Saw the Doors after Jim Morrison died, with some big hairy vocalist, who had great chops, but he was far too sane to be anything like The Lizard King.
Now, I would’ve been disappointed if I’d just gone to a Doors concert. But this was the early days of Summerfest, when they had one stage and ran bands one after the other from morning til the wee hours. So it was more like a Blood, Sweat & Tears/Dr. John/Mahavishnu Orchestra/Doors/Quicksilver concert. So by the time it started bothering us, we were excited about the jams being laid down by Quicksilver Messenger Service. Oh, and the fact that someone had lit a concession stand on fire.
U2 - Bono or the Edge
Journey - Neil Schon (have no idea if he even tours with them, but I wouldn’t go see a “Journey” without Neil).