It isn't just about bands playing cover music. It's the ones who say ridiculous things like "That's not how the solo goes". Not how the solo goes? Isn't the solo section where a musician can express himself? There is one popular trib band here who passed on a great drummer who, at his audition, "hit the wrong cymbal". Huh? You have to cover so close that you care what cymbal the guy hit? That is like firing a sax player because the guy in the band they are copying plays Rico reeds and your sax player plays La Voz.

Now, if you are playing Yakkety Sax, of course there is a melody to that instrumental and you need to follow it, but to force a player to completely ape a solo.... that's where the difference is between someone who can repeat and someone who can create. That is the reason I have never and will never see a "tribute band". That is just another word for "copy band". A copy band that only copies one act maybe, but still a copy band.

IF you have to cover, make the songs your own. I can't stand the jukebox mentality.

I had a horn player once tell me "They play 2 1/8th notes there and we are only playing one!" And I am trying to picture some drunken fool in a bar saying "I am NEVER coming to see you again!!! There are supposed to be TWO 1/8th notes there and you only played ONE!!!" Yet how many bands actually waste rehearsal time over silly crap like that?

Answer: every copy band everywhere.

Now, comparing Sinatra singing a Cole Porter song to a cover band playing whatever 40 pieces of crap they can wing without rehearsal is ridiculous and you know it is. The point is not what comes out of their mouths. The point is the willingness to and ability to take those 12 notes and tell your own story, not someone else's. If that doesn't matter to you, so be it. I cook too, but I rarely use a recipe. I don't want to cook Emeril's dishes. I want to cook my dishes. I don't open up Word and type Moby Dick. That's been done. I want to write MY book.

Once again, that's just me and mileage may vary.