To all Pink Floyd tribute bands.................

[SurrogateJoe]

For a laugh im going to post here, the story i put on my other fave site:

Gig tales..... whats the funniest/oddest thing to happen to you at a gig... here are a few of mine.

1992: Drugs bust in Dunoon.....We were there to do a gig (our singer stayed there) and whilst waiting to head to the venue 12 police suddenly burst into the house and tried to arrest us all.... unfortunately (for them) there were no drugs (though we were pretty drunk), one of our entourage then proceeded to beat up 2 of the police officers (they were plain clothes he claimed, he thought they were burglars), our singers kids pelted them with tennis balls (they thought they had come to steal their Mega Drive), another police officer fell trying to get over a table and broke his leg and finally our keyboard player handed them our business card and an offer to play at their next policemans ball.... they stood about for an hour or so then wandered off sheepishly, leaving one of their phones and a pair of cuffs behind them.... he he he

1994: Gala Day in Falkirk: A bad idea from the start, we were to play on the back of a float as it made its way round Falkirk to the bandstand.. being scotland it rained really heavy that day, then our keyboard player plugged his "new" amp in to the generator it went BOOM and smoke poured from the back of it, he broke into tears and jumped about crying and knocked his boards off the float onto the ground where one broke.... then the generator broke down, so we were all sitting like pillocks on this float as it wandered about Falkirk in silence. The same day, at the bandstand, one of the other performers, a cowboy sort of act, shot himself in the bollocks and it was in the paper.

1994: Motherwell Miners: The same keyboard player plugged his boards in and BOOM he electrocuted himself and blew up his new amp (there is a theme here)...

1995: Perth: Our van blew up on the way home from Aviemore, at 2am in the morning.... so, we all sat about in the back... being rather "influenced" by substances taken earlier that evening we were all acting odd.... sitting in the middle of the motorway and giggling, wandering around in nearby hills and trying to dispose of a set of chefs knives our drummer had "aquired" earlier in the evening..... as the night progressed the drummer went missing (as did the knives) and we got scared thinking he had gone mad and was going to kill us all.... so we all hid in the forest, then we got scared in case another maniac was wandering around in the forest and would kill us, so we ran back to the van... in the morning the drummer appeared, washed and fed, he had found a house in the night where the owner had taken him in our of pity and fed him and let him use the bath (and swimming pool outside).....

1996: Dunoon: Another "Dark Side of Dunoon" incident, where i accidentaly locked our keyboard player in the back of the van and broke the key.... how we laughed ("influences" again) of course we didnt get him out that night and had to go home.......

2000 ish: Aberdeen, some student awards bash.. Our usual van was off the road so we have a big curtain-side sort of thing, which had a huge hole above the cabin.. It was winter and it was snowing.. as we drove to Aberdeen the snow was coming into the back of the van (where we all were). When we got there we discovered our bass player had lapsed into some sort of chilly coma and wouldnt wake up.... we were slapping him and everything. Eventually we got him on stage and did the gig. Whilst there some local girl decided to come home with us (to stay with the bass player...... ahhh, groupies) not realising we lived a couple of hundred miles away.. I heard she finally got home a week later.... after various adventures. That was also the same van we picked up a hitcher in, he had a hat on with a torch taped to it and a flask of hot vimto..... we were all staring at him.. and he just kept smiling and reading a book with his hat-torch..... after an hour he complained it was too cold and got out.....

1998: Dunoon (again??????): Our drummer was too "influenced" by odd substances that he could not come out of the van..... so, our bass player decided to try doing the drumming..... we stood there (all "influenced" to tell the truth) and just stared at the crowd, who just stared back..... my guitar strings were vibrating in odd colours and everytime i looked at the bass player (on drums) he was just grinning in an evil way and bashing around.... after an hour of this we had to stop and prise the drummer from the van, eventually we kind of pulled the gig off......

2001: Glasgow..... somewhere..... Gig in a big hotel, our singer at the time was a ponce and we didnt like him, so we kept speeding up the songs and slowing down at random till he looked around at us... then we played as if nothing was wrong... this went on for a while until he cracked and ran off the stage (some nasty person had spiked his drink, adding to his confusion), later we found him being led outside by two soldier types to go "ski-ing" apparently (it was 1am in the morning, with no snow anywhere), he made it home later but never talked about what happened.

1999 (possibly): Aviemore: At a fancy dinner dance/wedding type function: first of all our keyboard player kept soundchecking by saying "testing, one, two... testicles, one two) after a while the hotel manager came and complained about the overuse of the testicles word..... so, unkown to the guests (we were setting up behind a big partition) our drummer decided to add a bit of flavour to the soup rolls lying on the table ( i will leave this to your imagination)... later we watched as this fat guy proceeded to eat not only his own roll, but also his wifes and the one on his other side..... oh, how we laughed.. on the way home we discovered the drummer had also filled the van with tables and chairs and bar stools......... stolen from the hotel... so we set up a little poker room in the back of the van.

Of course these days we have a very different band (well, im still there, the keyboard player is the same, and manager is the same.... and a lot of the "crew" are the same). We have had countless incidents like this, many worse, including getting lost, being attacked by dogs, people getting their hair shaved off, people being left behind at gigs, pushing vans up and down hills, breaking all of my guitar strings with one strum (an amazing feat.... i have no idea what i did, but i started to play wish you were here, and i broke all of my strings at one, with no backup guitar.......... pants), being attacked by the audience, falling into the audience.... oh, and in Airdrie Town Hall the stage is sloped, and as we were playing everything kept sliding forward..... until cables got pulled out and the drums started rolling forward......

I will post more as my memory improves.

Oh yeah... we once decided to try being upper class and all wear uniforms, unfortunately we did this on a budget and bought everyone faded blue cotton shirts, blue tracksuit trousers and blue socks.... humorously the gig was at a prison officers club and we all looked like convicts. After a few minutes they started to laugh at us so our singer got really cheeky with them, and later got "intimate" with one of their wives which led to a huge fight and us running away....


Oh... Another funny one, singer getting really into sing, eyes closed and stuff.... suddenly just as he opens his mouth to sing the mike stand falls towards him and the mike whacks him in the teeth and knocks them out.
He falls over in pain and we all laugh.... he he he.

Oh and a rubbish gig in Cumbernauld.. we played really badly and the crowd were not impressed (this was about 1992 again) at the end of the night our roadie decided to show off by lifting a really big speaker, then as he walked across the hall in full view of everyone he tripped and SOMERSAULTED with the speaker and fell on his backside, the speaker continued to bounce along the floor until it hit a table full of empty glasses which smashed.... he got a HUGE round of applause and they booked us back again

[Pink Fraud]

An interesting thread this one. I'm actually looking forward to seeing Pink Fraud at the Robin next month and to see what you do as one of the better known tributes.

I would make a couple of observations, as a fan and also a tribute performer, who has followed Floyd live since 1974:

Point 1:

Also as fans we are great believers of keeping it as near to the record as we can.....no random solos please....no woohoo backing vocals in money thanx!

The Floyd NEVER played things the same way twice, one of their '70's strategies was to develop material on the road and refine it before laying it down on record, something that David reinforced on his OAI tour.

Point 2:

Whilst at the 1974, 1977, 1979 tours I failed to see David playing an authentic 1970's Variax 500, so cut the authentic cornball please - we ALL use modern technology to some degree and it really doesn't matter. All that actually matters is that the audience goes away happy and the spirit of the time lives on.

An interesting question to pose here is what do punters want from their 'tributes'?

As expected a couple of shots across the broadside

I'm fully aware of the "variety" in "live" versions during the 70's, i was sadly too young to see them but have many bootleg recordings, we used to pick a number of live versions to play but most audiences got confused so we now stick to the album versions except where the live versions are commercially available i.e pompeii! My main personal beef is with people not sticking within the realms of Pink Floydness with their noodlings! It's a bit like Daryl Stuermers guitar solo in Firth of Fifth when he plays with Genesis, which in my opinion he loses the feel of by having a Van Halen shredding moment in...but worse!
As a tribute by all means expand within the style of the player you are portraying or within the arrangement as they perhaps would have done...but i think that random, out of style playing detracts from the Floydness of a piece, and surely, again, SAX SOLO IN COMFORTABLY NUMB?? Again i am not having a go just stating a personal opinion!

I'd also like to point out that at no point did i in anyway suggest that using modern equiment was a bad thing, just that we have tried to use as much vintage equipment as we can, because that is what we want to do! Also at no point did i say that we had ALL the correct vintage equipment! I at no point said that it matters, just that it matters to us... therefore it may matter to some people like us! I am not saying that what we do is "better" or "correct", but it is more "authentic", a small claim for a band in comparison to the dozens of "UK number 1" tributes out there, surely that sort of "cornball" is far worse!Thanks for checking out the equipment list on our website though!

I do agree that it would interesting to find out what punters want from a tribute though! we've found that they want different things which is why they go to see different tributes who offer different things!

See you at the Robin (we're bringing the 5 piece band so we'll be 4 piece plus a sax player for the sax bits!)

[Pink Fraud]

um...... by horrible shock coincedence, we were that band (with the sax player thing)....

And as always, theres more to the story than meets the eye.

The sax player in question called me one night saying that some band had been in touch with him, asking him to play with them... obviously he said no, and was angry at what he felt was a rival band "poaching" him.....

Needless to say, i took his side (he was a friend after all) and asked the band in question what they were up to.....

They then refused ever having contacted our sax player...........

Next, i seen the email where they got in touch with him from our sax player......

So.... i was about to start calling them a bunch of lying, untrustworthy buggers, when it all got sorted.

Turns out another member of Pink Fraud had indeed been speaking to our sax player (but the rest of the band did not know about this), and had offered him the chance to fill in, and maybe do the odd gig. HOWEVER, they claimed that they got in touch with our sax player after seeing his advert, offering his services, on a website....


So......... it was kind of our sax players fault.... he had indeed posted his ad on a musicians available site, then got really angry when approached.. turns out he had "forgot" about the posting, and he apologised.

The bad thing was that we looked silly as a result....... even though we had acted in good faith, plus of course, when some Pink Fraud members denied any contact had taken place, it added to our anger (cos we had the emails).


Anyway.... it all got sorted out, we shook and made up, and all is rosy in the garden.
It was very much a misunderstanding, and he was still our sax player at the time (not an ex member at all) but the confusion lay with the sax player, not the bands. We were still a new band then, and quite protective of our members....... im sure you would all have reacted the same way.

We have a different sax payer now.


On a lighter note..... i think we may have cracked it. The answer seems to be about keeping your home base on side. We spent most of the last 12 months travelling all over Scotland, and into England too, with mixed success. We found that we would lose money on one gig, but make on the next, so it was break even mostly.
Then, we spent a lot of money advertising with Rock Radio for two big local gigs we did... and wow, both turned out fantsatic. It seems the "local band" tag really helped and people appreciated the effort we put in.
We are now becoming "Scotlands Pink Floyd Band" rather than a UK band.... and this seems to have helped sales (in Scotland), i would prefer to crack the whole of the UK, but at least by staying closer to home then we can advertise better, appeal to the locals, spend less on travelling and expenses, and manage to get more bums on seats.. There are lots of smashing venues in Scotland, and most are keen to help "local" bands do well.....

Luckily our "local" area streches quite a bit, as our members are from all over Scotland...





And yes, Pink Fraud are great.... as are Breathe...... and Dark Side...... we are MUCH sexier though, and have better moustaches.

Yes indeed i have discovered all above to be the case!

I was one of the band members in the dark (side!) but now all is clear as this thread has proceeded to "let there be more light" on the subject!

Glad is all friendly now either side of the border

we're stuck in the london area with dozens of floyd bands (including some of the big theatre ones) so we can hardly push the "local act" tag, and there are enough "UK number one" or "Ultimate" bands out there, so we found another angle (
which has been slightly dismissed by another post) which we are trying hard with, and continuing to improve (although have not yet perfected as has been pointed out!). I particularly like the "spirit of" tagline used by some of the bands out there as it is bang on with how they approach the music, and i mean that in a POSITIVE way (don't try and read it as negative, that's not where i'm going with it!)

just a silly thought to conclude.....

If there is a four nations football tournament next summer (as we're all out of euro 2008) maybe we should have a four nations pink floyd tribute convention! There must be a welsh and northern irish tribute out there!

[fasfax]

HI all. Been a member here for quite awhile but haven't posted. The reason I picked this topic is I'm going to retire from my business in a couple of years, maybe sooner. Have been a fan of floyd since the 60's. From late 70's to mid 80's played in a variety of bands. Some original some top 40. Gilmour was and is a very big influence on my style. Have been playing guitar since the mid 60's. Started taking lessons at 6 years old. Have been interested in starting a tribute band the last couple of years. I'm working on getting my skills back. Have played mostly les pauls but recently a friend of mine had a framus. AFter playing it I ordered a Framus Diablo Pro Super Strat and really like it. Bought alot of backing tracks to practice to. When I finally get off the road I hope to find other musicians that are interested in starting a tribute band. I'm in no hurry. I know we are going to have to buy alot of equipment and take our time getting ready. I'm in my 50's now and can take my time getting everything together. Besides, I look alot like David Gilmour. Anyhow, I read your post and see that there will always be floyd tribute bands around. Some will do better than others. But I think it would be alot of fun to at least give it a try.

[darkside_andy]

I think Floyd put a sax break in echoes on at least one occasion, probably around '74 although someone will no doubt put me right on this, so it's probably a good job CN didn't appear 'till later.....

[filthyfish]

I have to admit to including a sax solo in comfortably Numb, just once, but in my defence, it was played by Ian Ritchie and I thought it polite to ask him to play the last track of the night.

[Talking Head]

[quote]We are now becoming "Scotlands Pink Floyd Band" rather than a UK band.... [quote]

I thought this was Scotland's Pink Floyd Band ???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4zSPpJ-POI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGMPbiTDof8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YABhvhQuN0s

[SurrogateJoe]

lol, yeah, they are still on the go...... we used to have a few encounters with them in the beginning, but have not heard about them recently. They do a very different sort of act, and they are all a good bit older than us


Regarding the bits about sax solos in numb and people changing things, then it depends on how it works i suppose and does it still sound like Floyd. We pride ourselves on the "live" nature of our show, no sequencers, midi files, recordings or backing tracks....... also, we like to put on a good show above all else, we try to keep the audience entertained and enjoying themselves..... its not just about us posing and being arrogant and up our own ars*s, unlike some.......

[Talking Head]

We pride ourselves on the "live" nature of our show, no sequencers, midi files, recordings or backing tracks....... also, we like to put on a good show above all else, we try to keep the audience entertained and enjoying themselves..... its not just about us posing and being arrogant and up our own ars*s, unlike some.......

oh right, so they don't play live then ? Arrogant posers... hmm sounds like you got some really high consideration of these guys lol

anyhow, was looking for youtube footage of your band and all I seem to find is an American Surrogate Band. You guys got any videos online ?

[SurrogateJoe]

Oh......... sorry, that wasn't a dig at them, i suppose it looks as though it is, i might edit that.... nah, they are pretty good as far as i know, not really paid much attention.

But bands using backing tracks and sequencers do annoy me...... there are a few around, to different degrees. I can see the point of sound effects, but not pre-sequenced huge chunks of songs, anyway, thats a whole different discussion.

I am not a fan of youtube videos, they are normally pretty rough. We did a DVD that we send to clients and stuff, which looks quite groovy.

[Pink Fraud]

lol, yeah, they are still on the go...... we used to have a few encounters with them in the beginning, but have not heard about them recently. They do a very different sort of act, and they are all a good bit older than us


Regarding the bits about sax solos in numb and people changing things, then it depends on how it works i suppose and does it still sound like Floyd. We pride ourselves on the "live" nature of our show, no sequencers, midi files, recordings or backing tracks....... also, we like to put on a good show above all else, we try to keep the audience entertained and enjoying themselves..... its not just about us posing and being arrogant and up our own ars*s, unlike some.......

re arrangement changes, I think that's a much better way of saying what i was getting at....does it sound like floyd! nice one!

[Pink Fraud]

I have to admit to including a sax solo in comfortably Numb, just once, but in my defence, it was played by Ian Ritchie and I thought it polite to ask him to play the last track of the night.

Ah , a culprit!

Only joking

I only heard about it rather than heard it myself! though It was a different band i heard about....it's spreading!

I suspect that the sax solo in Echoes in 74 that was mentioned by Darkside Andy was a similar case to yours!

Dick Parry was on the tour, played on shine on, money & us and them ... so they let him have a blow over echoes too!
I believe it was even the encore on gigs in winter 74 so that's even more similar!

all is forgiven

We've found that our sax players are only too happy to be allowed back to the bar rather than to make em play on other stuff....though we have trained/are training them to play second guitar in a snowy white style so we can multitask em!

[filthyfish]

I only heard about it rather than heard it myself! though It was a different band i heard about....it's spreading!

I suspect that the sax solo in Echoes in 74 that was mentioned by Darkside Andy was a similar case to yours!

We were probably still going under the "pinkside of the moon" banner, as it was the first gig after we sacked our old singer, I honestly cant remember now, but yes its not every day you get to play a few floyd tracks with someone who plays as well as Ian, I doubt it would work with an unknown player. I'd be cringing all the way to the last bar.

[BigDim]

Breathe have been a bit quiet since the NPF Festival fiasco, anyone heard anything from them?

I was wanting to get some reviews/thoughts on how the night went - any news?