David Victor

As some of you may know, I am the lead singer of one of the few Boston tribute bands: Smokin’. Hailing from Los Angeles, CA, Smokin’ has been around for nearly a decade in various incarnations. The band actually sounds great…we have four lead-quality vocalists and the harmonies (which are critical for reproducing Boston’s huge, very produced, sound) in this band are the best of any band I’ve ever been associated with. Everyone has great ears and we have a lot of fun when we play live! I certainly hope you can come out and see us.

While I love the music, it’s pretty tough to put together two hours of Boston hits because they really only had perhaps an hour’s worth of songs that the average fan still remembers. Thus Smokin’ has a continuous challenge of creating that extra hour of music for the lengthier two or three-hour shows. Of course, we’ve scoured the catalog for every b-side and album cut we can, but we’re still left a few songs shy of two hours due to some…ahem…internal disagreements about the best way to accomplish the two-hour mission.

Thus far we’ve reached a sort of detentes by doing as much Boston as we possibly can and by swapping in two classic rock ringers: Blue Collar Man by Styx and Highway Star by Deep Purple.

The funny thing is, these two songs always go over huge with the audience when we play them. It’s as if they’ve resigned themselves to the idea that they’re just going to have to sit through the “other stuff” before we get to More Than A Feeling, Peace Of Mind, etc. and then go nuts when they hear a certifiable hit…forget that it’s not even a Boston song. It’s a pretty strange phenomena, though I must say if I were in the audience I would feel the same way. You really need to see the show to appreciate it I think.

So I got to wondering: what if a tribute band that didn’t have quite enough songs for it’s “tributed” artist were to do a same-show tribute to another artist or two?

I can hear what you’re saying already: Hey Dave, isn’t that just called a “cover band”?

Well…not exactly. A traditional cover band does anything and everything they feel like doing. There are some really great cover bands out there, though not many of them play the bigger rooms because for whatever reason, a tribute band tends to put more butts in the seats than a “cover band”. At least, that’s according to the booking agents.

So here’s the full idea: why not create a tribute band that pays tribute to two or three major artists who had a lot of hits…but not quite enough hits individually for a two hour show? Of course, Boston fits perfectly into that category. But what other tribute would be compatible?

My thinking was some of the other larger artists from the 70’s like Foreigner, Kansas, .38 Special, Thin Lizzy, UFO…gosh, the list goes on and on. Imagine this: “Monsters Of Rock: Boston, Foreigner and .38 Special”. I think it could be a very attractive package…especially for the audience!

What do you think?

Yes, everyone’s doing it, now after holding out as long as I can, I am doing it too! And everyone knows…no blog is worth reading unless you say how you really feel, so I’ll try to be as candid as possible while still protecting the innocent (occasionally).

Come along for the ride!