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Health & Fitness

It's Tribute Band Season!

On the challenges of being a tribute band

It's the end of July, and we're deep into Street Fair Season, or as I think of it, Tribute Band Season. I was pleased to see this year's Art & Wine Faire had booked Petty Theft for Saturday afternoon. I got to the Faire about an hour before their start time, so I had the opportunity to sample the band that was on just before, Fleetwood Mask.

My initial impression was a little skeptical, as it was immediately clear that their lead singer was not just singing Stevie Nicks' parts, but was doing a Stevie Nicks impression, complete with trance-dancing, flowing dresses, and costume changes. I also couldn't help noticing that the keyboardist just naturally looked a lot like Christine McVie; she has a very English-looking jawline, her hair is the right color, and styled reminiscent of Christine currently. Additionally, their lead guitarist kinda vaguely looks like Lindsey Buckingham, although he really looks more like Bill Hader's SNL impression of Lindsey Buckingham. (Actually, he reminds me most of Eddie McClintock of Warehouse 13.) The drummer, fortunately for him and for us, looks nothing like Mick Fleetwood.

Musically, they did the job. The presence of Stevie Nicks gives Fleetwood Mac a distinctive stage persona, so it's appropriate for a tribute band to try and capture that, I decided. My skepticism thus quickly faded, and I had a lot of fun.

Afterwards, waiting for Petty Theft to set up (several bands had annoying setup and technical problems, it seemed), I found myself standing next to Barb, the keyboardist, so I told her their set was fun, and mentioned how much I thought she resembled Christine. She told me that she'd been considering adopting a British accent when she spoke between songs, and asked me what I thought.

I emphatically recommended against it. I thought a phony accent would push them into "Beatlemania" territory — would make them, perhaps ironically, inauthentic.

Going back Sunday to catch their entire set led me to think about what a fine line a tribute band must walk, between lameness on one side and parody on the other.

Let's define, for the sake of our discussion, three types of bands. Cover bands do other people's songs in their own style. These have been around for awhile; remember Sha Na Na? Tribute bands focus on one band in particular, usually with the intention of capturing the musical spirit of that band as authentically as possible. For example, Zebop! (I continue to contend that there's a law somewhere that compels any street fair to book Zebop!), or Furthur, about whom I like to tease my friends by calling the "the world's foremost Grateful Dead tribute band". Then there are clone bands. These are bands that attempt to not only replicate the musical and performing style of a particular performer, but reproduce a performance. Think Elvis impersonators, and what a cliche of self-parody that phenomenon has become. Most recently there have been added "Rat Pack" impersonators, Four Seasons impersonators, and most egregiously, Janis Joplin impersonators. The worst thing that a tribute band could do, to my mind, is become a clone band.

Beatlemania (no "!", it seems) opened on Broadway in May 1977. I never understood why anyone would want to see this show. Four actors/studio musicians, in costumes, playing Beatles songs. It's not like we didn't have the records, the films, even a few videos of the actual Beatles, all of whom were still alive, and recording (albeit separately) in 1977! There was even an original cast album. Think of that for a second. A recording of a bunch of actors, not interpreting the Beatles, but imitating them. I mean, LPs were still only about $5 in 1977. Buy a copy of Sgt. Pepper, for pity's sake! The real thing was available!
Sadly, Beatlemania was a success; road shows still tour to this day. It has become a Vegas act. It has, thus, inevitably spawned a whole genre of crappy Broadway musicals, e.g., "Movin' Out", "Jersey Boys", and "One Night with Janis Joplin". (That last I find particularly and personally offensive. I loved Janis Joplin. "One Night with Janis Joplin" is an insult to her music and her memory.)

Petty Theft takes a different approach. Arguably, they have to, in that Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers don't have a star frontperson as distinct as Stevie Nicks. Would you recognize a Tom Petty performance impression if you saw one? Petty Theft frontman Dan doesn't even play the same kind of guitar as Tom Petty, he has a 12-string acoustic guitar he plays upside down. There may have been a Rickenbacker somewhere on the stage, but I didn't see it. Their guitarist doesn't try to imitate Mike Campbell on stage (again, how would you recognize it?) but he has Campbell's style down solid. Indeed, Petty Theft sometimes edges into cover band territory; they did a J. J. Cale song Saturday (Cale died Friday), and when Fleetwood Mask's Claudette, in full Stevie Nicks drag, joined them onstage for "Stop Dragging My Heart Around", it was a real treat.

Although I didn't stay to see their set Sunday, I would expect Steely Dan tribute band Aja Vu shares that same advantage. Nobody knows (or cares, really) what Donald Fagen and Walter Becker look like, especially onstage. Steely Dan scrupulously avoided a stage persona, so as long as Aja Vu get the music right, there's not much to sweat.

Granted, much of this is painfully subjective. I'm not a fan of the Sun Kings, principally because their reproduction is a little too much of a reproduction (see "Beatlemania", above). I think their "John Lennon" is a little too good an impression. My friend Arianna, on the other hand — and she's a more intense specifically-John Lennon fan than I am — likes him especially. I feel the same way about the metastasizing collection of Rolling Stones and Michael Jackson clone bands, all of whom I assiduously avoid. A Mick Jagger impression is one thing; a bad Mick Jagger impression is something else again.

So I was glad, on Sunday, to see Fleetwood Mask stretch out a bit beyond the imitation-level performance, with a rework of "I Don't Want to Know", and a mini-set of blues. Introduced by guitarist Steve by asking if there were any old Fleetwood Mac fans, I, being the smartass I am, shouted out "Oh, Well!" Then they brought out 2d guitarist Mark and his '62 sunburst Strat (if you know guitars, you just sighed) and did some Peter Green-Danny Kirwan era number that I just. didn't. recognize. (So 10 points to them for stumping the band.) Barb followed with a blues cover that "Christine liked to do", and then came "Oh, Well" (although they left out the long "Part 2" ending). I do have to say that the weird feeling came back when, at the end, bandmembers were introduced as "our Lindsey Buckingham" and "our Mick Fleetwood". I disagree. Claudette isn't their Stevie Nicks, she's their "Stevie Nicks". There's an important distinction, and it makes the difference between a Foreverland or a Sun Kings, and a Petty Theft or a Fleetwood Mask. The former are museum pieces. The latter are party-and-dance bands. I know which I prefer.

And a quick mention of Savannah Blues, the bluegrass band that did the early set on Saturday. They were a very pleasant accompaniment to morning coffee in the morning fog.

Note to PSBA: I've been, in the past, critical of the music booking for the street fairs, but kudos on this year. You can book Fleetwood Mask and Petty Theft every year if you want, I won't complain. But please do something about the sound problems, they were really nasty this year.

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