I’m not a fan of tribute bands. Nostalgia sucks and many a tribute band actually co-exist while the band they are a tribute to are still around! How inane.
However, I ended up winning tickets to see the Bootleg Beatles a couple of weeks ago and I did enjoy it, though it was slightly creepy watching these men make a living by pretending to be the Fab Four. I decided to look at it like a piece of theatre rather than a gig. Gigs will often have an element of pretense, but the Bootleg Beatles were all pretense, obviously. There were some good jokes too, proving they weren’t taking it too seriously:
‘Lennon’ – “This is for my beautiful new wife Yoko”
Some members of the audience (possibly pissed) – BOOOO!
‘Lennon’ – “She’s not as bad as Heather!”
‘Mcartney’ - “Who’s Heather?”
‘Lennon’ – “You don’t wanna know!”
Musically they were very good; the costume changes were fun, and all in all it was entertaining. I doubt I’d have paid to see them though.
Anyway, back to the point. I also saw The Smiths Indeed at the Zodiac (I refuse to call it the O2 academy) on Saturday for the third time. They bypass the cynical part of my brain and tap directly in to my warm, fuzzy side as they’re just so damn good. I’ve been a massive Smiths fan for the last 10 years, but I was only 5 when they split up so even if I had been taken to see them, it’s pretty unlikely that I’d remember it. The Smiths Indeed give me a glimpse in to what it might have been like; ‘Morrissey’, complete with gladioli in the back pocket, sways to the perfectly executed music. Sometimes he twirls a noose around like a lasso. He looks and sounds just like Morrissey in ‘86. None of the others look like their counterparts, but we don’t really care about that – they play their instruments well enough which is all we want.
It’s a very different set list to what we’ve seen before – they concentrate on the later stuff this time, coming on to ‘Last Night I Dreamed that Somebody Loved Me’ and adding ‘Unhappy Birthday’ ‘Meat is Murder’ and ‘Some Girls are Bigger Than Others’ to the more expected fare. B-sides ‘Jeane’, ‘Half A Person’ and ‘Is it Really So Strange’ get a mid-set look in. They can even do ‘How Soon Is Now’ between the four of them, something even the original band had some trouble pulling off live.
90 minutes and one encore later and they’re done. I would happily have watched them perform every Smiths song ever written, but maybe that’s asking a little too much. See you again next year, Indeed.
