There's been quite a bit of talk lately regarding tribute bands; especially of bands that no longer exist. I've never seen them taken this seriously before.

I have nothing against tribute bands, but they don't fufill a need for me. I'd rather play a CD by the original group.

There are some groups who have basically become their own tribute bands, though.

Most are very good like Brit Floyd or The Musical Box. I've always like the Beatle tribute bands like Rain or Beatlemania. Obviously we will see more tribute bands in the future. Even the big acts still touring are almost tribute bands like the current Yes.

I love a good tribute band. We have loads of them around Vegas, and the shows are usually free or $5.

Obviously, my first choice would be to see the actual band, but most of them don't exist anymore, at least in their classic form,
so I can either sit home and watch reruns of "Kojak" or go out and have a blast hearing some of the greatest songs ever, LIVE!

We are seeing the band LedZepAgain this weekend for free. They are playing three one-hour sets. They were just featured on
AXS TV's "World's Best Tribute Bands" and they rock like hell.

We see a Beatles band called The Fab a few times a month. They don't try to dress or look like the Beatles, but they do awesome
shows - and mix things up with solo tracks, "Beatles vs Other Sixties Bands" shows and mash-ups like "Helter Skelter/Whole Lotta Love".

I'd be lost without our great tribute bands.

I don't mind bands that play the music of another artist (thinking someone like Project/Object), but it kind of creeps me out when I see a band that pretends they're the real deal - I.e., the Fleetwood Mac tribute band I saw on AXS, where they referred to each other by the FM names, like, "Come over here, Stevie, and tell them about this song you wrote."

I'm with Linda - I'd rather hear the originals.

Though I know there are people who enjoy tribute bands, and more power to them, I would much rather play a CD.
One phenomena I do not understand that is related to this, is people who ae fanatical about Elvis impersonators. I've met some people who go to conventions for Elvis impersonators, buy CDs by these people, and yet have little interest in Elvis and would never play his music.
Sorry to go off-topic, just always confused by that.

Maybe I misread the poll.
If it means I can never hear a Beatles CD if I go to see a tribute, I'll stick with the CDs.
If it means I can still play the CDs all day, and in the car on the way to see a tribute band, then, yes, a night out with the wife hearing live music
is always great.

I've seen a few.

Get The Led Out kill it every night and there are no "tribute" act.

They don't dress like Zep and they recreate the aural experience of hearing the albums.

Musical Box are simply incredible, and Australian Pink Floyd were fun to see.

Overall I don't get too into it because it's no the real thing and kind of empty.

But, if it's done with taste and class it can be a fun night out.

Seeing as Zep aren't around and Floyd aren't around and Genesis aren't around, yeah I do get something out of those shows.

But do I need to see these shows and live for seeing them?

No, absolutely not.

Project/Object is the only tribute band I'll go to see. It helps that they can sometimes have up to 6 Zappa alumni playing with them (always Ike Willis). They're more a Zappa band than what Dweezil does.

Many years ago I saw several tribute bands, some great, some ok

Zep Boys (Good)
The Australian Doors Show (great)
Think Floyd (I remember eyeing off the back up girls more than the band, they were stunning)
There is a Cream cover band i'm keen to see at the moment

They're totally useless and pointless to me whether they're sound-alikes or not. Why would I want to hear a fake band playing music that I enjoy when I can put on a CD of the real thing?

People laugh at a lot of the Elvis impersonators. I laugh at every tribute band.

Get a life tribute bands and start playing your own music.

Pete Townshend said this exact same thing about The Who a few years ago. You and he are both correct.

I guess it depends for me on how much they act during the set. I'm completely okay with artists lifting entire set lists from famous artists, but I guess I just like to see some of the talent and originality of the bands playing the songs. So for example, when I saw Bat Sabbath a couple weeks ago, they were playing nothing but Sabbath songs, but they were still the Cancer Bats.

The other thing with the bigger acts like this is the bands are generally really freaking talented, and I'm sometimes curious to see what they would do on their own. Even when I see the original artists, I prefer if they play a couple of new / deep catalogue songs, and not just the greatest hits.

And for the record, if you think tribute acts aren't your thing, just wait until Mean Gene the dancing machine really gets going. They'll be licensed Kiss tribute acts in every city in the world.

I'm neutral on this. I like the concept of tribute bands but I've never seen one. I think it's a great way to keep the music of certain artists alive, and if people are enjoying it then who can complain?

I once played in a quasi-tribute band. It was fronted by a Chinese singer who spoke broken English and loved Michael Schenker, so the set list included a bunch of UFO & MSG songs as well as a few Thin Lizzy songs. The weird part was that he didn't promote us as a tribute or cover act, opting instead to pretend that they were our songs. He also wasn't terribly musical, so if he missed the cue for his vocals we would have to play an entire verse and come back around before he started singing. It's a good thing we were all experienced musicians so we could shift things to accommodate him. The only reasons I played in this band were (a) he paid me for rehearsals & gigs and (b) I was friends with the guitarist & bass player and we had a blast rockin' out together.

With one exception, ZPZ always felt somewhat stiff and rote to me. That exception being the year they played at Experience PRS - it felt like they were actually having fun playing the music at that performance, like the focus was on feeling the music. Every other performance I saw them perform, including the DVD from the first tour, felt like the focus was on getting it right, not playing the music.

Dweezil's latest band has a different feel to it. There didn't seem to be as stiff a feel to the band - it felt more like they were having fun with the music and veering away from playing "the most accurate" version of Frank's music. To use Frank's phrase, it felt like they were putting a bit of the eyebrows on the music. And that's something I always liked about Project/Object - they were faithful to the music, but not slavishly so. Maybe the break between Dweezil and the ZFT has freed him up a little bit. He's made some comments since that came to light that made me wonder if Gail was putting restrictions on what the band could perform and how they could do it. They even played "Watermelon" this tour, and Dweezil's solo had some of the flavor of the original, but it was not a copy of Frank's solo. That was always my complaint w/ZPZ - the music didn't feel like it was alive. It felt frozen in time.

I saw Brit Floyd last year, and was very impressed. So I am open to seeing others.

You know one day their will be an official KISS tribute band but one that tours around these parts is a lot of fun called KISS Alive.

In the case of ABBA for instance, the real group will never tour so the tribute band named ABBA The Concert is the second best thing.

Speaking of father & sons, I've found most of the big band jazz groups that use the founder's name though he's long dead to be abysmal. Ellington would be the Father/Son/Grandson connection. The other that comes to mind is "Glenn Miller"; but I'm sure there are more I'm not thinking of right now.

Like Fresh Cream?

I love a good tribute band. To me, it's about hearing the music performed live.

I never got to see Led Zeppelin, but I've seen Get The Led Out a couple of times with Smiff and they're great.

One thing I wonder: Do bands like Brit Floyd, Australian Pink Floyd and Get The Led Out have to pay some kind of licensing fee because they use the real names of the bands in their advertising? And The Floyd bands use films and videos that are from the original band, so I imagine they have to pay something to use them. And Get The Led Out promotes themselves as "The American Led Zeppelin" and even has a Jimmy Page spoken intro at their concerts, so that's why I ask.