I saw Australian Pink Floyd last night. Seriously. They actually call themselves Australian Pink Floyd. They didn't even attempt to come up with a clever name for themselves, like Dark Star Orchestra (a Grateful Dead tribute band) or The Soft Parade (The Doors cover band).
Even stranger is the fact that Pink Floyd itself recently reunited (in 2005, but that's recently enough for me, seriously, what's two year in comparison to the 1034343783 bazillion years that the earth has been in existence? *note: I may have exaggerated that number, since we all know that really the earth has been in existence only approx. 5,000 years, at which time God created it, as well as Adam and Eve).
Okay got off topic, what's new.
So. Tribute bands. Are they weird? I mean, aren't people who play Carnegie Hall in essence "tribute" pianists to the composer who wrote the particular piece of music? Or is that somehow different because there aren't any words, or because a composer differs from a band of people who make music together, or because the composers are typically dead, whereas the members of Pink Floyd are most definitely not (except Syd Barrett, but since he left the band back in the '60's I'm not sure that he should count, although he did name the band and basically came up with its psychedelic sound, so maybe I'm wrong on this).
Then again, Jerry Garcia is dead (some would claim differently of course, but those are the same people who have friends inside their own heads...) and I still find it sort of odd that there are a wide range of tribute bands to the Dead, many of which make bank.
Beyond the irony of the name and the irony of tribute/cover bands in and of themselves, an even greater irony existed in the hall last night. There they were - a tribute band playing to an audience who (for the most part) used to listen to their music back in the day, but who now work corporate jobs, and who were singing along to lines like "We don't need no education," but (to clearly stereotype) who likely headed home to their mc-mansions and sent their kids off to prep school in the morning, so they can get into the "best" colleges, and have offspring who do the same exact things, over and over and over....
The best part was the SUV that was apparently being raffled off in the lobby area.
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Part II of my old blog www.lizlawson.blogspot.com
2 comments:
I think it all depends. Were they trying to sound exactly like Pink Floyd ,or were they putting their own spin on it. I like cover bands when they play all Beatles songs, for instance, but play them with their own style. That's what composers do. They add a little of their own flair to the composition.
no they were trying to sound exactly like pink floyd. i hear that they even borrowed most of their stage set and tour with it. however, the lead singer's voice was no match for the voice of roger waters. I know that's not surprising.
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