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In the space between infinitely dedicated fandom and untiring musicianship, the tribute band arises. Though they have long been misunderstood and written off as mere novelty, a new age is dawning for these musicians, as many of the groups are filling the stadiums once played by the original acts. Much of the confusion surrounding the hundreds of tribute bands currently making the rounds seems to stem from their motivations. Why would a group of skilled musicians dedicate themselves to replicating someone else’s band? Damian Darlington of the self-explanatory Australian Pink Floyd Show says the motivations aren’t always as surprising as one might think.
“If you’re a classical musician or a jazz musician or a folk musician, you don’t think twice about playing other people’s music,” he explains. “You might be playing Bach or Beethoven, but we’re playing Pink Floyd. Classic rock music has that shelf life, to a certain extent.”
Brendan Raferty, frontman of BC/DC — an AC/DC tribute band from British Columbia — offers a different theory. To him, a major incentive for playing someone else’s music is the immediacy.
“If they pick a popular band, they will have a bigger response than anything they try to do originally,” Raferty says. “There are original acts that start that way. When people do something and it’s popular, it’s hard [to stop], because they can just copy someone else and sell out an arena. I think that they start thinking it’s successful, but they can also take it to the next level where they start thinking they’re Robert Plant.”
According to Raferty, tribute bands take a wide assortment of approaches to the material. Some groups try to emulate the sound and look of the original group, while others, like BC/DC, play the hits but create a show uniquely distinct from what AC/DC is doing, often adding humour into the mix. Darlington and Aussie Floyd take a different tact with their performance.
“You start with the music itself and the need for people to see this music live,” Darlington says. “We’ve always prided ourselves on making the extra effort to sound as much like the original as we can. We’re never really complacent about it.”
Regardless of how these groups create their music and the experience that comes along with it, Raferty and Darlington both agree that many fans aren’t simply coming to see a fake version of a band they like. The tribute acts are a living representation of the memories and emotions that are tied to influential bands. There is even a new group of fans who are coming to the shows not just to see live versions of songs they love, but to see the tribute bands who are playing them, creating an unexpected staying power for the more successful groups.
“There are a lot of people who look back with nostalgia at the music they grew up with, and they want to have that live experience of it,” Darlington says. “There is also a new generation of people that come along to our gigs and other tribute bands’ concerts who never had the opportunity to see this music live, so we’re sort of fulfilling that need as well. We would never put ourselves as being better than the original Pink Floyd, but you have some people who seem to like the way we play the song better than the original.”
“CBC Radio did a ticket giveaway to our show because they couldn’t get AC/DC tickets to give away,” Raferty adds. “It’s about putting your time in, but it’s also about our show. People enjoy it, and to a lot of people, it’s a rite of passage and a memory. We have kids that are seven years old at our shows and they’re on their grandpa’s shoulders, and their grandpa knows all the words and their grandkid knows all the words. It spans generations, and I don’t know of a lot of bands that do that.”
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