Cover Me: Why are tribute bands so popular? Nostalgia is a key player

Cover bands were blips on the radar, banished to dark, dingy and tiny clubs during the ’70s. However, much has changed a half-century later. Are cover bands so ubiquitous at concert halls around the country since so many legendary bands are history?

“Absolutely,” Black Jacket Symphony producer Jason Rogoff said. “You can’t listen to so many of these amazing bands anymore since the members of the groups are dead or will not tour anymore and fans want to hear their songs live. People want to hear the songs they loved when they were young and the only way for some of these songs to be heard live is through a tribute band.”

Rush, Led Zeppelin and the Beatles are history. The surviving members of Rush, vocalist-bassist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson, reunited to play shows in London and Los Angeles in 2022 for the tributes for the late Foo Fighter drummer Taylor Hawkins. Robert Plant dusts off Zeppelin tunes and often delivers rearranged versions of his former band’s classic tunes. Beatles cuts are part of Paul McCartney’s sets. The same goes for Ringo Starr.

However, McCartney and Starr are no longer mop tops, so the octogenarians look quite different than their younger selves. That’s why the Fab Four, the Ultimate Tribute, is performing Friday to a nearly sold-out crowd at the Bing Crosby Theater.

The members of the band sound and also look like the Beatles from their salad days. Spokane Valley native Robbie Berg, who portrays George Harrison in the Fab Four, believes fans enjoy witnessing the young Beatles on stage.

“People really like the experience,” Berg said. “It takes people back to a certain time.”

There’s no doubt tribute bands connect with fans who yearn for nostalgia.

“Fans like going back to a period when they were 15- or 16-year-olds and they first heard a certain song for the first time,” the Rush Project guitarist Bill Heck said. “There’s nothing like that time when we felt invincible and you remember what you heard on the radio or what songs you loved from that period.”

Some of the long of tooth bands no longer feature key members of the band even if they are still touring. The Eagles’ Glenn Frey died in 2016, and guitarist Don Felder is no longer with the group. Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie recently died, and Lindsay Buckingham is no longer with the act.

“So you’re not even going to see key members of the group,” Rogoff said. “The question then is, ‘Is it worth it?’ ”

There’s also prohibitive costs. Some folks couldn’t afford tickets for Paul McCartney’s concert last April at the Spokane Arena.

“The price is a huge factor,” Rogoff said. “Look at the Eagles tour. A lot of the tickets, which aren’t even close to the stage, are $500.

“If you go to the Black Jacket Symphony (Eagles) show, it’s $40 a ticket. We aren’t the members of the Eagles, but we do all that we can to deliver the sound of the songs from the records and we also have a visual element.”

Cover bands dotted the landscape after Beatlemania debuted in 1980. The demand for Beatles bands has always been high.

“There’s nothing like the sound and the look of the Beatles,” Berg said. “They made the greatest songs of all time and what they created changed the world.”

Berg’s first live Beatles experience was catching 1964 The Tribute at the Bing.

“That was 10 years ago,” Berg said. “I was just a kid and I was blown away. I couldn’t get enough of the Beatles after seeing a band like 1964.”

The Fab Four and 1964 go to considerable lengths to resemble the Beatles, like many Fab acts. And then there is the Fab Faux, which is all about the music.

“We don’t try to look like other bands that play Beatles songs,” Fab Faux vocalist-guitarist Jack Petruzzelli said. “Nothing against those bands, but we just focus on the music.”

And what do the icons think of the cover bands? Hell’s Belles, an AC/DC act that frequently plays Spokane , earned the approval of Angus Young himself. Dark Star Orchestra, which recreates a different live show from the Grateful Dead’s extensive catalog, has shared the stage with Grateful Dead members, including Phil Lesh, Bob Weir and Bill Kreutzmann.

The Fab Faux’s Will Lee, who spent much of his career as part of the World’s Most Dangerous Band – aka David Letterman’s house band – had a brush with Paul McCartney when he performed at a 9/11 benefit at Madison Square Garden 22 years ago. Lee felt compelled to tell the Beatles bassist that he played the same instrument in a Beatles cover band.

“McCartney looked at me in this annoyed manner,” Lee recalled. “Do you play ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’?” McCartney asked. Lee noted that his band performs the adventurous Beatles classic.

“Well, you must be pretty good,” McCartney said.

When McCartney played a Hillary Clinton benefit in 2016, he contacted Lee.

“Paul, being a typical musician, forgot his bass when he flew in for the event,” Petruzzelli said. “Paul contacted Will and said he needed a bass. … Will gave him his Hofner (bass). … That proves that a band like ours that plays Beatles songs has some use.”

McCartney was pleased with Lee’s gesture and he has given the Fab Faux the thumbs up. Beatles fans, by selling out shows of the Fab Faux, the Fab Four, 1964 and other such acts, have given their seal of approval as well.

“The music lives on through bands like ours,” Petruzzelli said. “I imagine the same will be so 50 and 100 years from now. Bands that pay tribute to the Beatles will be like symphonies who play Bach 100 years from now.”