Tribute or Tribulation: Australia’s Love Of The Tribute Band (Naked City)

It’s a well-worn story set a few decades ago, when a famous Australian rock band was playing a gig in rural Victoria. They had a drawn a modest crowd of around a hundred people yet not far away in another country town a tribute band was playing to a full house. The tribute band were in fact a clone of the nearby original Aussie rockers.

So, what exactly are tribute bands and tribute artists, a phenomenon that has seen a recent worldwide resurgence? We are all familiar with tribute artists who set out to impersonate a famous singer like Elvis. If you visit the annual Parkes Elvis Festival you will encounter a virtual army of Elvis crooners, all mimicking different stages and body shapes in the life of the King. They perform with a degree of reverence but also a sense of fun and affectionate tongue in cheek.

Most tribute bands, as we have seen over the past 40 odd years, tend to be a lot more serious. To pull in the punters they set out to recreate both the sound and look of famous rock and pop bands, many whom no longer exist. Unlike so called ‘cover bands’, who simply set out to play a certain songbook, tribute bands tend to go the whole hog with copycat costumes, hairstyles and pulverising light shows. In some cases they are anointed by the original artists, like the incredibly successful ‘Biorn Again’, endorsed by the original members of Abba. For others it’s just a blatant exercise in artistic appropriation, although this does not seem to deter the fans that regularly support them.

They will argue it’s the next best thing to seeing the original groups. If you were too young to have ever witnessed The Beatles for example, you could catch ‘The Fab Four’, ‘Rain’ and ‘The Bootleg Beatles’ on the international stage. Locally you might choose ‘The Australian Beatles’, ‘The Beatnix’ or ‘The Beatlez’. Close your eyes, scull another rum and coke and you could well be transported back to 1964 when the original Beatles played the Sydney Stadium.

In Australia today tribute bands would appear to be flourishing, for not only club and pub shows but corporate gigs and birthday celebrations (if you can afford one). They either adopt patently obvious names like ‘The Australian Pink Floyd Show’ and ‘Queen Forever’ or a more subtle approach like ‘Tapestry’ (the Carole King Experience) and ‘Leaps & Bounds’ (a Paul Kelly tribute band).

Multiple versions of the same band, touring at the same time as the original band, are not unusual in Australia. Mental As Anything were a band that enjoyed great popularity in the late 70s and 80s and are the subject of a new feature-length documentary titled ‘Live It Up: The Mental As Anything Story’. Original members Reg Mombassa and Peter O’Doherty have reunited to celebrate the band’s 50th anniversary, marking their first performances in 25 years. Meanwhile a couple of tribute bands, the ‘Fundamentals’ and ‘X-Mentals’, continue to tour. What then are the chances of all three groups appearing on the same night, in the same Australian town?

Mercifully, not all tribute bands take themselves seriously. Later this year hard core Led Zeppelin fans will risk total deafness at ‘Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening’ at the Sydney Opera House. Led by the son of the late Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, it promises a quasi-religious experience for lovers of high-volume riffs. Yet decades ago we got to see a far more interesting pisstake when US band ‘Dread Zeppelin’ toured the local pub circuit. Fronted by 300 pound Elvis Presley impersonator Tortelvis, complete with gaffa tape sideburns, the group played a mashup of Zeppelin and Elvis songs, in a raucous reggae style.

Whilst not wildly popular the band proved that there is room for genuine satire and parody when it comes to reviving or paying homage to a particular artist or band. For example, I would love to see a Milli Vanilli tribute act, with the impersonators miming songs, originally lip synced by Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus. Even better the audience themselves could be invited to mime along in a joyous and shameless ‘mimathon’ (if there is such a word!)

Rolf Harris (aka The Octopus) disappeared in disgrace decades ago but a wobble board orchestra playing instrumental versions of ‘Six White Boomers’ and ‘Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport’ could be a huge hit on the club circuit. If a Masonite company came to the party as a sponsor, everybody at the gig could join in the endless ‘whoop whoop’.

Finally, as many of the tribute bands set out to recreate singers who have since departed this world, some under rather tragic circumstances, why not a special zombie like presentation? As the eery lights flicker we see a set of five coffins on stage and the sound of ‘Thriller’ echoing throughout the pub or club. A decomposing Michael Jackson is the first to emerge, closely followed by Kurt Cobain, Freddie Mercury, George Michael and of course the king himself Elvis (fresh from his infamous autopsy). It’s an all singing, all dancing spectacular of the living dead, and an almost biblical transformation from ‘tribute’ to ‘tribulation’.

Amen!