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Your experiences of playing in a tribute band.


Grassie

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14 minutes ago, Mickeyboro said:

Absolutely agree with the above. Amused to see a pal of mine Glenn Quinn on guitar. I know him from his work with Son of Man... had no idea he did this too!


Thank you Mickey! Yep.... Glenn is in there..... and also Ian Danter (Talksport presenter/commentator & Planet Rock DJ) on drums too! :)

 

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1 minute ago, dmccombe7 said:

No afraid not. The singer / guitarist & Bolan lookalike is Midge Peebles. 

Yeah I had to message Mr. Peebles after said bass player scammed me on here by not paying for a bass. FWIW your mate seemed like a decent bloke, the tartan trousered mess of a bass player less so!

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3 minutes ago, lemmywinks said:

Yeah I had to message Mr. Peebles after said bass player scammed me on here by not paying for a bass. FWIW your mate seemed like a decent bloke, the tartan trousered mess of a bass player less so!

When was that as they've had about 18 bass players in about 15yrs i think including me for a short spell. Midge is spot on and very likeable guy. I don't really know the current bassist too well just to say hello kinda thing but drummer is Greg Midge's son and keys is JP and that's the only name i can remember calling him. The 3 of them were all the nicest guys i had played in a band with just all a bit too much demand on my time asking me to learn 34 songs in 3 weeks and then another 20 for the next week was all just a bit too much for me. Without any band rehearsals too but i still keep in touch with Midge and was at his birthday party couple months ago.

Edited by dmccombe7
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7 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

When was that as they've had about 18 bass players in about 15yrs i think including me for a short spell. Midge is spot on and very likeable guy. I don't really know the current bassist too well just to say hello kinda thing but drummer is Greg Midge's son and keys is JP and that's the only name i can remember calling him. The 3 of them were all the nicest guys i had played in a band with just all a bit too much demand on my time asking me to learn 34 songs in 3 weeks and then another 20 for the next week was all just a bit too much for me. Without any band rehearsals too but i still keep in touch with Midge and was at his birthday party couple months ago.

Just had a quick look for the fallout thread (the bass was sold on the marketplace here) and it was 2009.

 

EDIT - Old bald fella, had a penchant for wearing tartan trousers.

Edited by lemmywinks
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Me and a drummer mate started last year in a "soundalike" to The Who...we are called The Substitutes - you'll find us on Facebook @TheSubstitutesGlasgow - and so far I have to say that I am loving it.

It is also probably the quickest (Pete message literally 5 minutes after the ad was posted!) and easiest band I have ever put together and definitely the easiest bunch of guys to get on with I've ever played.

We've only played four gigs since we started gigging last July, but so far the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive...gig-wise though, we're all in full time jobs and all have families, so we've agreed not to go too nuts with the gig bookings, one or two a month suits us fine.

Dougie.

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34 minutes ago, lemmywinks said:

Just had a quick look for the fallout thread (the bass was sold on the marketplace here) and it was 2009.

 

EDIT - Old bald fella, had a penchant for wearing tartan trousers.

I only joined them in 2016 so no idea who that would be. Glad i don't know him by sounds of it. Sorry to hear it happened.

Don't let it put you off the Hot Love band tho as they are a pretty good outfit. Gigging twice a week most weekends on not bad money either.

Dave

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14 minutes ago, lou24d53 said:

Me and a drummer mate started last year in a "soundalike" to The Who...we are called The Substitutes - you'll find us on Facebook @TheSubstitutesGlasgow - and so far I have to say that I am loving it.

It is also probably the quickest (Pete message literally 5 minutes after the ad was posted!) and easiest band I have ever put together and definitely the easiest bunch of guys to get on with I've ever played.

We've only played four gigs since we started gigging last July, but so far the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive...gig-wise though, we're all in full time jobs and all have families, so we've agreed not to go too nuts with the gig bookings, one or two a month suits us fine.

Dougie.

Nice Dougie. Had a wee listen on your FB page. Berkeley studios i reckon. Some nice bass runs you're throwing in there too. 

All the very best with the project.

Dave

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I've briefly mentioned it on here before, but I think I've probably got a claim to most niche tribute on the board. I've been having fun with my DEVO tribute for a couple of years now; we're not regular and only average about a show a month except we tend to do them in two batches a year - one spring run and one autumn run. We're in an odd position as we tend to bomb at tribute festivals but our own shows can pull 200+ in the right town. I guess not many DEVO fans also want to be able to catch Noasis and The Killerz after our set...

In musical terms we tend to go for attitude over accuracy so I scored a bunch of bootleg live sets and live footage when we were setting up so I could work on the synth sounds and arrangements. I think I listened to just about nothing else for about four months and to be honest I've only recently been able to get back into enjoying them as a band. Had to go total cold turkey except for when we played the sets!

7X1EKHs.jpg

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19 minutes ago, borntohang said:

I've briefly mentioned it on here before, but I think I've probably got a claim to most niche tribute on the board. I've been having fun with my DEVO tribute for a couple of years now; we're not regular and only average about a show a month except we tend to do them in two batches a year - one spring run and one autumn run. We're in an odd position as we tend to bomb at tribute festivals but our own shows can pull 200+ in the right town. I guess not many DEVO fans also want to be able to catch Noasis and The Killerz after our set...

In musical terms we tend to go for attitude over accuracy so I scored a bunch of bootleg live sets and live footage when we were setting up so I could work on the synth sounds and arrangements. I think I listened to just about nothing else for about four months and to be honest I've only recently been able to get back into enjoying them as a band. Had to go total cold turkey except for when we played the sets!

7X1EKHs.jpg

Do you play any Polysics songs?

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34 minutes ago, borntohang said:

I've briefly mentioned it on here before, but I think I've probably got a claim to most niche tribute on the board. I've been having fun with my DEVO tribute for a couple of years now; we're not regular and only average about a show a month except we tend to do them in two batches a year - one spring run and one autumn run. We're in an odd position as we tend to bomb at tribute festivals but our own shows can pull 200+ in the right town. I guess not many DEVO fans also want to be able to catch Noasis and The Killerz after our set...

In musical terms we tend to go for attitude over accuracy so I scored a bunch of bootleg live sets and live footage when we were setting up so I could work on the synth sounds and arrangements. I think I listened to just about nothing else for about four months and to be honest I've only recently been able to get back into enjoying them as a band. Had to go total cold turkey except for when we played the sets!

7X1EKHs.jpg

That's ace! I've been trying to get our keys player to wear an energy dome for years, the pillock calls it a hat...........

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9 minutes ago, troubadour said:

First band I was in just played Jam songs.

Unfortunately that was the early 80s before tribute bands had been invented.

In those days you were just copying and it was frowned upon!

Funny how things have turned around but i remember that too. Any more than one song from a band and you get slated xD

 

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6 hours ago, Rich said:

@sprocketflup was in an excellent Kate Bush trib 'Cloudbusting' at one time. Not sure if he still is? Must say I was dead jealous when he got that gig.

Still with them yes, six years now, longest I've been with any band. All over the country, really enjoying it. In fact we've just released the dates for the first half of 2019 then over the water in the second half of the year. Bring 'em on! Thanks for the mention :)

 

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I play in a tribute to The Cult called Cult Fiction.

I had never done a tribute band before and the task of playing just one groups music gave me a challenge i had never had before.

We aren’t a GNR or ACDC act so the demand is not the same but in 2018 we had 25 paid gigs from headliners to festivals and double headers.

All fun and a different attitude to running a covers act.

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On 22/01/2019 at 19:41, Grassie said:

Hi all,

As the possibility of joining a tribute band has come up, I was wondering if any BC’ers  have some experiences they’d like to share? Good and bad, funny and sad - let’s have it. 😊

 

 

Playing in a RHCP band, we had to play "Under the bridge". By the second verse, a lot of people were singing. So our singer points the mic to the audience and guitar stops... the roar of the venue singing together made the hair in my arms stand up. Hard to describe, but there was something really intense about having all those people singing back at us.

I don't get that in our originals bands :D

 

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11 hours ago, mcnach said:

 

 

Playing in a RHCP band, we had to play "Under the bridge". By the second verse, a lot of people were singing. So our singer points the mic to the audience and guitar stops... the roar of the venue singing together made the hair in my arms stand up. Hard to describe, but there was something really intense about having all those people singing back at us.

I don't get that in our originals bands :D

 

2450 people singing "i'm just looking" at the top of their voices back at us at Rock City is one of the most emotional things I have ever experienced! 

It must be amazing to be in a band that plays huge venues every gig, the energy coming back at you is quite intense. I can see why some people get a little carried away after the gig (that's a whole new thread right there)😜

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I play in ‘The ELO Experience’, mainly in theatres and the occasional festival / outdoor event. Been doing it now for around 10 years. Wasn’t my first taste of tribute bands, having previously played for a Neil Diamond act. Prior to that I had no working knowledge of tribute bands, and at first found it more than a little strange. Still surprises me that people will buy cds and merchandise for a tribute act, but there you go. 

Downsides for me - playing mostly the same set everywhere, as the punters obviously want to hear most of the big songs. Also the theatre environment can be a bit lacking in gig vibe, which we do our best to overcome. However, the upsides far outweigh this - our audiences come to the gigs knowing and loving the songs, and their response to us doing them is genuinely heartwarming. We have quite a few who come to many of our gigs up and down the UK, and their dedication is much appreciated. Most of the theatres and venues usually have decent crew, dressing rooms and sometimes PA systems for us to utilise, and when I do gigs with other bands in venues without these it can be a bit of a reminder how nice theatres are. Also doing theatre gigs, we are usually done by 10pm!

I haven’t seen many other tribute acts, the first being a Stones band (either The Counterfeit Stones or the Rolling Clones ?) many years ago who were excellent, and The Bootleg Beatles who were fantastic. To be honest, if it wasn’t for the emergence and acceptance of tribute bands, as a bassist in my 60’s now I’d probably be struggling to be still playing for a living so long may it continue! 🙂

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