Man, bloody tribute shows! this town is crazy for fucking tribute shows!First it was Leonard Cohen, which was fine and all, you know I love Leonard and he is Canadian and has played here a couple of times at least, so I didn't mind the occasional tribute to Cohen. But then it became a yearly phenomenon and got really tired. Really really tired..
Then came the Johnny Cash tribute show, and everyone knows I love Johnny, so I was like "Sure whatever, not really an original idea, but Johnny's cool".
Then a week or two later the Bob Dylan tribute came around. And Bob Dylan can go fuck himself, being the untalented egotistical hack that he is. He can go somewhere dark and smother himself in his huge sack of smarmy tuneless banality for all I care. Lord knows I wasn't going to attend that thing.
Then it was the fucking "Bruce Fucking Springsteen's fucking tribute show at the fucking Ship". Good God! Why?!. Miserable frigging Bruce Springsteen? who the frig would go and spend 10 dollars (or was it $15?) of there hard earned money to see friggin locals (many of whom are waaay better songwriters then Bruce Friggin' Springsteen) pay tribute to his phony guttural mewling and obnoxious cheese orchestra?...
Apparently many many people. The tribute ran three bloody consecutive nights and was sold out and less then a year later they did it again!
Since then we've had more Bob Dylan tributes, Fleetwood Mac tributes, Iron Maiden, Lucinda Williams, Sarah Mclaughlin (Bleech!), and now a Townes Van Zant's tribute?. Is the state of the music scene really so bad and so uninspired that we must rely on these obvious money grabs to get people out to shows? Is the St. John's audience really that wary of original acts with original material that the only way to guarantee a large attendance is to put on some showcase where some shitty top 40 icons of the past are praised up by a collection of local talent who could be doing something much better with there time?
Don't bother answering, I already know, I already know.
