I've been seeing a lot of these lately as cheap alternatives to seeing hard-to-get tickets of actual ageing popstars charging a fortune or not touring or dead popmasters being unavailable, and pretty much they are all do a great job and it's a nice night out for my Aunty to boot hearing all the oldies. Just thought it might be worth mentioning any good ones anyone pops to see.

Last night I saw the 40th anniversary tour of That'll Be The Day, which has been going longer than the history of rock had been when they started up in the mid-80's. Mostly younger singers these days, plus two originals (9 in total, 5 of them multi-instrumentalists to cover a wide variety of music styles) and choreographed for costume changes, with some light entertainment thrown in for older music fans - Bill & Ben The Flowerpot Men, Mick Jagger commenting on modern society, some good gags.

So last night I saw:

The Beatles

Elvis Presley

Queen

Madonna

Bill Haley & The Comets

Cliff Richard

The Eagles

The Rolling Stones

Diana Ross

Madonna

Dusty Springfield

Buddy Holly

The Shadows

The Monkees

Neil Diamond

Roy Orbison

Tom Jones

Mary Wilson

The Shirelles

The Kinks

The Rubettes

The Four Seasons

The Four Tops

Blondie

Tina Turner

Mike Sarne (light-hearted)

The Beach Boys

My highlight? 2 instrumentals & The Kinks You Really Got Me.

Wonderful Land (The Shadows) and Let There Be Drums (Sandy Nelson) - that sounded amazing, more banging than the original recording, 3 sets of drummers.

and much more - didnt get in till midnight. Not bad for £30.

Ooh nice, I adore 'Wonderful Land'. <3

My grandad was lucky enough to see The Beatles as a teenager (although did say that he could barely hear anything over the screaming!) but obviously I was born in the wrong decade to ever experience my favourite band live. So I gave The Bootleg Beatles a go in 2016 and it was an excellent time, really authentic. George Martin had just passed away so they slotted 'In My Life' in as a tribute which was a lovely touch.

I decided to book tickets again a few years later for their shows commemorating 50 years of Abbey Road and Let It Be, alongside the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, albeit pushed back to 2022 in the end due to Covid. Again it was a really good time, with pretty spot on likeness and I did feel like I was being transported back in time, especially with the '60s pre-show playlist too. I did stick out a bit in the audience as someone in their 20s but didn't mind one bit.

So yes I couldn't recommend them more!

I did see tribute bands for The Killers and Oasis too as part of a University project but I think that's it. That is still the closest I've come to the latter

I'd maybe be interested in seeing a tribute band for The Jam one day as they never all reunited and Weller still doesn't do much of their material live

Have seen a AC/DC tribute act before in Brighton several times who were a lot of fun. Sadly not seen the actual band themselves live though.

Saw Bjorn Again at Reading and Bootleg Beatles at Glastonbury, both back in the 90s. Also ended up seeing an Evanescence, a Nirvana, a Bauhaus and a Cramps one in recent years but I have to confess I don't really like straight tribute acts where they pretend to be the band as I'd rather just go see the original artist.

I prefer them with a twist like Elvana (who were great fun) or something a lot of Brighton bands do these days is just play a set of covers of a particular band but in their own style.

There have been

Tigercub do Queens of the Stone Age

Loa Loa do The Hives

PROJECTOR do Pixies

All Better do Katy Perry

Ellis D. do T.Rex

Mindframe do Slipknot

and Halloween is planned in with

Slung doing Paramore

Really Big Really Clever do Weezer

Orchards do Foo Fighters

On 26/09/2025 at 11:29, Jade said:

Ooh nice, I adore 'Wonderful Land'. <3

My grandad was lucky enough to see The Beatles as a teenager (although did say that he could barely hear anything over the screaming!) but obviously I was born in the wrong decade to ever experience my favourite band live. So I gave The Bootleg Beatles a go in 2016 and it was an excellent time, really authentic. George Martin had just passed away so they slotted 'In My Life' in as a tribute which was a lovely touch.

I decided to book tickets again a few years later for their shows commemorating 50 years of Abbey Road and Let It Be, alongside the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, albeit pushed back to 2022 in the end due to Covid. Again it was a really good time, with pretty spot on likeness and I did feel like I was being transported back in time, especially with the '60s pre-show playlist too. I did stick out a bit in the audience as someone in their 20s but didn't mind one bit.

So yes I couldn't recommend them more!

I did see tribute bands for The Killers and Oasis too as part of a University project but I think that's it. That is still the closest I've come to the latter

I'd maybe be interested in seeing a tribute band for The Jam one day as they never all reunited and Weller still doesn't do much of their material live

Ooh I never got to see The Beatles, so well jealous there, and I have yet to the see Bootleg Beatles, they really are top of my wish-list. By way of compensation Ive seen Macca & Ringo in their younger days, so I've had a good chunk of Beatles stuff. Re: being the youngst there, glad you didnt mind, I get put off going to see some acts as I'd be the oldest there! The last time that happened was Katy Perry I think, but luckily there were enough older confirmed bacholers I didnt stand out too much 😄Sparks had a proper age range of fans from 80's to 20's!

I saw my Oasis tribute act last year - Noel Gallagher did a 2 fer one, solo and band stuff 😄The Jam tribute I'd go and see, Weller is tediously insistent on doing dull current stuff instead of giving the audience what it wants. "You're not moving much" he commented in a rare moment of interaction. I was SO tempted to shout out "Well play something we recognise then!". Oops! Happily I saw The Jam in 81 and they were the dog's bollocks.

19 hours ago, Severin said:

Saw Bjorn Again at Reading and Bootleg Beatles at Glastonbury, both back in the 90s. Also ended up seeing an Evanescence, a Nirvana, a Bauhaus and a Cramps one in recent years but I have to confess I don't really like straight tribute acts where they pretend to be the band as I'd rather just go see the original artist.

I prefer them with a twist like Elvana (who were great fun) or something a lot of Brighton bands do these days is just play a set of covers of a particular band but in their own style.

There have been

Tigercub do Queens of the Stone Age

Loa Loa do The Hives

PROJECTOR do Pixies

All Better do Katy Perry

Ellis D. do T.Rex

Mindframe do Slipknot

and Halloween is planned in with

Slung doing Paramore

Really Big Really Clever do Weezer

Orchards do Foo Fighters

I would also prefer to see originals where they are still active, and I saw Bjorn Again way back when. They were fun, and the best second-best thing to actual ABBA until Voyage opened. Ooh I'd like to see the Weezer tribute, theyve got a great back catalogue. I saw T.Rextasy back when they started up and they were fab. It's sobering to think that the main-man has been touring for longer than Marc Bolan was alive!

My faves include Elio Pace, who doesnt impersonate Billy Joel, but he sings the songbook as himself with so much love and enthusiasm and knowledge that it's infectious, The ELO Experience, and recently good shows from Bye Bye Baby Four Seasons, and Bee Gees, Roy Orbison, Kate Bush and Elvis Presley - I forget his name but he's been to Vegas and done shows. I enjoy when the backing band let loose on classic instrumentals during costume changes, they are all generally great!

As bands struggle to make money these days with zero streaming income, a lot of 'em do tribute shows to amke ends meet in between their own material, as it's a more guaranteed earner. ELO Exprience also do an Eagles tour too.