What's wrong with 2023 audiences?

[Lance Bunyon]

I hope you have a good show!

Thanks. I'm getting more comfortable with the duo shows. Last one went well. Skip the ABG. concentrate on singing well and try and find a pocket with my super vanilla guitarist. I feel really exposed without a drummer. It's a real learning opportunity every time. Better money too!

 

[HolmeBass]

no i was obvious very serious about changing the timeline of the band an or universe to suite my mistake. please follow along

Sure, it was pure hilarity.

 

[Panek]

In Europe is fine, and over here nobody goes to see cover bands.

Exactly THIS! Cheers, Europe bro!

 

[Bass Man Dan]

Do cover bands need to become tribute bands to find a receptive audience? I ask this sincerely. The audience would know exactly what they were going to hear. Because we have a decent variety, and maybe it's a detriment. Does the same crowd that wants to hear Alice In Chains also want to hear Dave Matthews?

 

[Lance Bunyon]

Do cover bands need to become tribute bands to find a receptive audience? I ask this sincerely. The audience would know exactly what they were going to hear. Because we have a decent variety, and maybe it's a detriment. Does the same crowd that wants to hear Alice In Chains also want to hear Dave Matthews?

My best friend (keyboardist) has a childhood buddy who's in a Journey tribute act which is also a tribute act for two other similar bands (which escape me at the moment).
The thing that gets me the most about this thread I started in a fit of ennui is the almost pathological 2023 distain for cover bands. When did this happen and why? To me it seems like class warfare. Let me explain. Cover band is the most working class thing four or five musicians can put together. "Let's learn a bunch of popular tunes and see if we can make a few bucks on Friday and Saturday night!". Don't get me wrong, in the past 40 years I've been in a fair number of original bands (including the original iteration of the one I'm in now).
The reason for steering away from the original act model is twofold:
1) most locals walking into a bar don't care about your original intellectual property.
2) most club owners won't or can't pay for starving artists to bring their work to the masses before it's become popular.
I've had some extreme bad luck in the past 20 years financially. I won't harp on it because it's not Germaine. But the reason I bring it up is I actually need the money I make on weekends. Due to my bad luck (technological disruption) I am not in a great place financially.

Original acts need financial backing of some type for a few years to Forever.
Whether it's a record label (which doesn't really exist anymore) or Mommydaddy...I sense the current distain for cover bands is covert class snobbery...

 

[Katoosie]

I fear you may be correct.
Rock and roll was a unique element 70 years ago. All of a sudden we didn't need 16 instruments and musicians to rock the house. Add the disruption of WWII and we had the perfect storm for rebellion.
Kids today don't seem to HAVE rebellion. Even hip hop has mellowed.
People have 75 inch TVs, handheld networked computers, 1000 likes per hour to jolt the oxytocin. 20 something's may be far too numb and jaded to even know how to react to a non virtual real life situation.
The Post Human Experience ™

What.

Damn, this thread is painful to go thru.
As a jaded 20 something, I can't feel a thing.

We need more young blood on TB!

 

[Lance Bunyon]

I hink it has mostly to do with the kind of scene you're playing as, OP.
All the live music concert that I've been to, everyone was just moshing and having fun -

What.

Damn, this thread is painful to go thru.
As a jaded 20 something, I can't feel a thing.

We need more young blood on TB!

You enjoy your Age-ism. I'll enjoy mine. Get off my lawn.

 

[Katoosie]

You enjoy your Age-ism. I'll enjoy mine. Get off my lawn.

Yeah, lots of threads here are "old man yelling at clouds"

 

[Corigan]

Grumpy old man:

 

[Grahams Groove]

My best friend (keyboardist) has a childhood buddy who's in a Journey tribute act which is also a tribute act for two other similar bands (which escape me at the moment).
The thing that gets me the most about this thread I started in a fit of ennui is the almost pathological 2023 distain for cover bands. When did this happen and why? To me it seems like class warfare. Let me explain. Cover band is the most working class thing four or five musicians can put together. "Let's learn a bunch of popular tunes and see if we can make a few bucks on Friday and Saturday night!". Don't get me wrong, in the past 40 years I've been in a fair number of original bands (including the original iteration of the one I'm in now).
The reason for steering away from the original act model is twofold:
1) most locals walking into a bar don't care about your original intellectual property.
2) most club owners won't or can't pay for starving artists to bring their work to the masses before it's become popular.
I've had some extreme bad luck in the past 20 years financially. I won't harp on it because it's not Germaine. But the reason I bring it up is I actually need the money I make on weekends. Due to my bad luck (technological disruption) I am not in a great place financially.

Original acts need financial backing of some type for a few years to Forever.
Whether it's a record label (which doesn't really exist anymore) or Mommydaddy...I sense the current distain for cover bands is covert class snobbery...

Another perspective based on your post above is that you've moved the goal posts (or created additional goal posts) in order to find a new "other" to blame for some apparent downturn in the success of- or response to- your cover band. I don't mean that to be an ass, but that's not a stretch in the context of your posts in this thread. First it was about audiences being the problem. Someone then suggested Gen Z/cell phones were to blame, which you seemed to agree with to some extent in your responses. Then it was craft hipsters. Now it's that you and your cover band cohorts are subject to class discrimination. That's a lot of excuses, and almost no responsibility taken for how you can change the circumstances for you and your band.

To your points on original bands versus cover bands, there's nothing compelling in your argument that says cover bands are any more or less working class than tributes or original bands. You just state it without any actual reasons. Is it demonstrably lower-skill than being in an original band? If so, why? Is it "harder" than being in an original band or a tribute act? You make the argument that cover bands are more financially viable than original bands. So how is that working class, when working class jobs tend to draw less pay than white collar or 'higher skill' gigs?

Here's a perspective that flies in the face of that - maybe your average cover band is more like the Amazon knock-off versions of pedals created by reputable builders who created the circuits and designed the sound of those pedals. There's an argument for that being true, and that is decidedly not working class. Point being, there's no meat to your claim, and that's why it looks like a search to blame others.

Finally, if your goal with music is to maximize or supplement your income, then treat it more like a job. If you're seeing less money and turnout for your cover gigs, then it sounds like you need to rethink your approach and how you're investing your 'musical time'. That's a far more reasonable plan than continuing the search for people or circumstances to blame, all of which you won't change by doing so.

 

[Pocket Dave]

What happens here at the "jazz jam" is that mostly the kids from the local college music programs come out and shame the old-timers with their mad skills. I'm very glad they have these opportunities still to play with random other players, though, because that's a huge part of the difference between what they're learning in school and what they'll encounter in real life.

The oldsters come for the blues jams. Most folks in that (my) generation don't care as much about jazz.

Which is a shame IMO.

I love blues. I also love jazz, soul, 90's rock, classic rock, country... Give me something to play with some decent players and we'll find a way to make it fun.

 

[LBS-bass]

Do cover bands need to become tribute bands to find a receptive audience? I ask this sincerely. The audience would know exactly what they were going to hear. Because we have a decent variety, and maybe it's a detriment. Does the same crowd that wants to hear Alice In Chains also want to hear Dave Matthews?

In my experience here in the US, cover bands can still do well if they're reasonably well put-together and if they're not up there acting like they'd rather be anywhere else. The bands that do the best have some sort of hook. That could be something like a popular front person or, in our case, strong three-part harmonies.

What people don't seem to care about are bands that don't work very hard to refine their sound or stage presentation. The myth (in my opinion) that cover bands can't develop a following stems from the fact that most of them just don't do much to rise above the sea of mediocrity that many cover bands represent. So there are a ton of cover bands out there that really have no chance of succeeding because they haven't figured out that they need to put themselves together in a way that makes them successful. But people always have liked to hear familiar music played well, and they always will.

That said, I think tribute bands are more likely to succeed, in part, because they do tend to go the extra mile to refine what they do. If you're the kind of person who pays attention to detail, and you're putting together a tribute, you're more likely to be the kind of person who will craft a high quality experience for your audience that goes beyond just stringing together a bunch of poorly performed songs that they've heard other bands do better. They already have the hook - the tribute aspect - and in order to do that hook right you have to be pretty solid about it.

At the bare minimum, though, they are all cover bands. One is a cover band that plays a variety and the other is a cover band with a strict formula.

 

[LBS-bass]

Which is a shame IMO.

I love blues. I also love jazz, soul, 90's rock, classic rock, country... Give me something to play with some decent players and we'll find a way to make it fun.

I agree. I'd love to have some higher-level challenges in the jam scene here but I feel like if that's going to happen I'm going to have to create it. I don't live in the same universe as the music-program kids and they are very good players but that's just not my hang. I appreciate it, though.

 

[mikewalker]

Do cover bands need to become tribute bands to find a receptive audience? I ask this sincerely. The audience would know exactly what they were going to hear. Because we have a decent variety, and maybe it's a detriment. Does the same crowd that wants to hear Alice In Chains also want to hear Dave Matthews?

I think that's the essence of the conundrum!
Today's music/culture audience is SPLINTERED! Thousands of specialty channels...

The 'top-40 hits' cover band was a viable thing back when there was a different and very limited music distribution model (Radio, TV, Movie Theatres to a very limited extent, Record Stores and Magazines...) That was a long time ago, and things have changed dramatically

 

[LBS-bass]

The thing that gets me the most about this thread I started in a fit of ennui is the almost pathological 2023 distain for cover bands. When did this happen and why?

See my post above. I think it's because, at some point, the situation went from one where a decent cover band could make a decent living to one where clubs were paying next to nothing and so the "hobby band" became the standard for covers. Not that every hobby band is a pale imitator of what a good band can be, but a lot of them were just a group of people who got together for fun to play songs that they (and everyone else) already knew. There's not a ton of work or thought put into this, and it shows. That's what the average person brings to mind when they think of a cover band.

Now, I can say this because, at this point, I'm also just playing for fun and I play covers. I write original music, however, I won't perform it live.

But I know the difference between the kind of players I used to be able to find and the kind of players that are out there now. It's very hard to find people who have the skills I need, to the point where I know if certain people ever leave my band, that band will fold because I can't find anyone to fill their shoes.

The best players mostly got priced out of the business and they're not doing this anymore; what I have in my band is retired ex-pros who have come back to it, and they're all aging out. So you have a lot of bands out there with pitchy vocals and beginner to intermediate level skills, and they're hustling gigs. That's what the economic reality has driven.

 

[E2942]

At a quick estimate, it would take about 6 years of constant gigging to observe 2,023 audiences.

 

[/\/\3phist0]

Ain't THAT the truth.. the band (to get a couple beers, not to play) went to one in the Northern 'burbs in Minneapolis. 10 bucks for a brat from a food truck!! Made the 7 bucks the brewery charged for a beer sound reasonable..

Regards
Mark

Yet, the band? 4 hour performance, 2 beers per member, 300.00 for 6 hour commitment is somehow OK?

 

[Bass Viking]

Update. We got a communique from the matriarch of the Leukemia survivor (her mother) that kinda apologized..."wow last night was so great! We were upstairs at the second level talking about how good you guys were! It was so hard to move around or interact.

I suppose better late than never.

We can't wait to see you at your other engagements!"

Yeah right! Next time, if it's for a cause you believe in just throw money at it.

 

[Lance Bunyon]

Yeah, lots of threads here are "old man yelling at clouds"

Try it, it's fun. You know what's funny tho? I'm 17 years old in my mind. I'm close to 57 in my arthritic body. You know how to hit 57 years old?
Don't die™

 

[Lance Bunyon]

I suppose better late than never.



Yeah right! Next time, if it's for a cause you believe in just throw money at it.

Best advice in the entire thread! I salute you. I am a double cancer survivor. Sometimes I'm surprised I'm alive.