This is an age old debate, but I thought it was worth another outing.
Why do so many music fans consider tributes to be the second class citizens of the music world? I found this quote on another forum:
"£32.50 for a covers band - i'd rather shag a spider and use that money to see a real band playing their OWN material"
This debate will run and run. There is no reason at all that the composer of a piece of music will necessarily play it better than anyone else. In the history of popular music (about 5,000 years), people have only played their own compositions for about the last 60 years. I've used this analogy several times before, and I stole it in the first place, but when the Berlin Philharmonic plays a Beethoven symphony, nobody calls them a tribute band, but what is the difference between what they do and a modern day tribute?
I think that the tribute band stigma is attributable to our emotional attachment to the original performers, not to any basis in fact. To suggest that they are less talented because they didn't write the music is deeply flawed, nobody ever says that about leading classical soloists or virtuoso jazz musicians who never play their own compositions.
As for the tickets prices, what is being charged is not expensive for a show of the size put on by the many tributes today. Nobody is getting rich out of it, these are big shows and it costs a fortune to put them on. And tribute bands receive no composition or album royalties, so live performance is their only source of income.
If we want to see modern day classics performed in live shows that do the music justice, so called "real music" fans should stop reminding tribute bands at every opportunity that we only go to see them because the originals don't tour any more. With bands like Brit Floyd, The Musical Box and The Mahavishnu Project elevating the tribute phenomenon to world class status, it is time to accept that they can put on a show equal to anyone who ever played the music before them.
