“Wanabe's???”

Quite often I hear what people think and experience about tribute bands. I listen to all comments in a very patient manner, especially after our Santana Tribute concerts and some email I get. Most people that go to tribute concerts, they want to experience the same music, energy and sound they get from the original artist bands. There are definitely more positive comments than negative. One of the biggest positive comments I get is, “listening to you guys is like having the real Santana band on stage”. This is one of the best compliments  I could ever get.  It is an honor receiving these compliments. Believe me, it takes a lot of hard work. Not only do you have to do a lot of research, but you also have to get the right mix of musicians to achieve this excellence.

About the tribute band arena (business), unfortunately, I do not see a lot of effort in all the tribute bands I have heard. Some are excellent and others are not worthy to be on stage which brings a negative side to this business. But then…..this is for the talent agencies to screen out. I think that if the agencies and the tribute bands take a positive step towards quality and recreating of the original artist, this business could be a phenomenal business for everyone.

Another observation is  when some negative people can not find anything wrong with a tribute concert, most often, I hear the same negative comment….. Every time I hear a negative comment, I take in consideration who the person is and what they are doing for a living.  And I dare say…. that probably 90% of the people making these negative comments are actually coming from other musicians. They also say, “you guys are wanna be’s, and these same musicians are playing the top 40 bands or other styles of music including classical. These complainers, instead of locking all their energies into one specific artist like we do, they spread themselves out and do multiple artist styles. These same musicians do multiple tributes in one show.  I do not see anything wrong either way. I have many friends playing top 40 music for a living.  I am in no way down talking these bands, just the people that down talked the tribute bands. I personally don’t see a difference between a top 40 band and a tribute band. They are still playing other’s people’s music . The only difference that I see is, that the tribute bands get paid more money because it becomes a true complete show.

One last thing I want to touch is “Individuality”. Every musician I know is a complete different individual  with his own personal music styles and likes. These music styles do blend in, in our own bands.  For example, in our Santana Tribute band,  we try to get as close to Santana as possible, but since most of us come from different places and with different traditions, somewhere in between the songs we play our personalities come out which makes our band very exclusive and unique. This is what I call "EXTENDED PLAY". In other words our on version of Latin Rock. I have never seen any two different top 40 band or any two tribute band sound exactly the same. They can definitely come close to the original artist but never the same. And “definitely” we will never replace the original artist.

Just a small comment:  Galo Rivera © 2002

Galo Rivera