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Discovering Japan ～ Graham Parker & The Rumour

Yes but Quo is sugar honey iced tea and simply knowing that is enough to swerve the “problem”

Guitarist and I nearly came a cropper with exactly that on Saturday. We went up the front side by side for the guitar solo in The Final Countdown, feet up and planted on a monitor that felt it like to was made of cardboard. Bore no weight whatsoever. Heft-less one might say. I think we managed to style it out 😎

By general band member agreement on the night, Mustang Sally's gig on Saturday was 'the worst we've done', but paradoxically the punters loved us and the 80-year old birthday boy whose party it was seemed delighted to hand over the wedge at the end. I've been trying to work out what went wrong to make us feel as we did - we're normally very tight. The venue didn't help - a large sports hall with high ceiling and a solid floor - took ages to get the PA right, by which I mean not feeding back randomly - after a generous 2 hour set-up. Maybe the other thing upsetting our vibe was the over-ambitious inclusion of several new numbers which I'm ashamed to say were under-rehearsed but thrown into the mix on the basis that 'the endings and verse/chorus structures will sort themselves out'. That's a recipe for disaster, as we found out. 'Footloose' is a speedy number, but not SR71 Blackbird-on-afterburner fast, leading to a triple- instead of a double-coda then a collapse into a silence that would have gone down a storm in a Trappist monastery. As for 'Money for Nothing' with me on bass+lead vocals, I actually got it all right only to find that after the last verse about banging on the bongos our gitrist had forgotten the need for a final chorus and had gone straight into that riff instead, leaving the rest of us wondering how to stop, but no worries, it just dribbled out like an old guy's piddle in a handy hedge after one too many Mackesons... Perhaps I'm being too hard on us - it was first gig for a month due to cancellations, I was feeling very tired and wobbly due to some meds I'd had to take that day, there's angst about the new PA which some members feel is no improvement on the old one but £4k dearer; in the end I guess it was just another day at the office, to be forgotten as quickly as possible!

Tried to start a Motley Crue tribute band up several years ago, we really were trying to replicate them musically and visually, after lots of auditions for the drummer, Tommy Lee, we had to give up as none of them had a really large penis 😄

Comparing the two Pink Floyd tributes I've seen in the last year, one was Australian Pink Floyd, 'nuff said. The other a local band with multiple keyboard players, a woman on keys and main vocals. Two guitarists, one of whom looks like Roger Waters(!) The other keys players doubled on sax and bass. Now the interesting thing is, I enjoyed the local band more as it felt more like a real gig, they clearly enjoyed being there and that was infectious. APF was like watching a musical to the extent it felt like a pastiche to me, and there was almost no audience interaction. I've also seen an excellent new Steely Dan tribute. They had ten people, eight of whom were wearing check shirts. They can't have eight Donald Fagens...

For me, a lot have already been listed here but this one was bigger than most to me in my teens. Simon Gallup, I just loved his sometimes melodic, sometimes frantic, but always driving the song approach to bass.

If anyone here could it would be me, and I don't. The natural response of the electric bass doesn't go low enough to need them. For that matter even when the PA has them the electric bass channel strip should be high passed no lower than 60Hz. Otherwise the gosh awful cacophony that sounds like a teenager with a 5,000 quid system in a 500 quid car driving past can be the result.

I play in an Elton John tribute band - naturally the focus visually is on Elton, with an array of outfits, the onstage banter, the glasses, the voice, the mannerisms etc. I wonder how many punters know who has been in Elton's band over the decades - I've tended to use a P bass (thinking of Dee Murray) but then his other two bassists - Bob Birch and Matt Bissonette - use five string Stingrays anyway. I wear something smart and suitable onstage but don't look anything like any of those bassists.

Depped for a pro Pink tribute band at a great venue in Newcastle. Here’s a little headstock footage of the one “bass solo” esque moment plus a rocking end to the song. FullSizeRender.MOV

I would, but modern powered speakers with monitor tilt handles are too wobbly.

I think an appreciation of Jamerson is something that comes later in life. My icons as a weird obsessive teenager were the aforementioned Stuart Zender and Flea; it was a long time before I came to appreciate playing as relatively low-key and subtle as most of Jamerson's stuff, even though I'd been listening to old Motown and Atlantic compilation records since I was wee small.

Peter Hook and The Light are a Joy Division tribute band and tour relentlessly, world wide and mostly packed out, so the audience is definitely there. He laughs about fronting his own tribute act. I like their old school way of touring too, lots and lots of small venues as opposed to a handful of huge ones. As for a singalong, jump to 2:30, although I'm still uneasy about the joyous nature everyone sings along to such a sad song. As for tribute acts, I feel like you should make as much effort as possible to be like the act without becoming a cartoon of them.

Oops You said that and I missed it. David