What Are Tribute Bands? And What Does Their Explosion Mean For the Vietnam Music Scene?
A little while ago, I wrote a piece about my increasing frustration with venues demanding entertainer type musicians like myself to call friends, family and fans if we had any to our booked shows.
The conclusion in that article was that bringing friends and family was very different to bringing fans, because friends and family are there just to see you, and will happily do so by spending the least amount of money possible. Whereas fans are the ones who actually spend money, but the caveat is that entertainers rarely have fan-bases, because there's nothing to attach a fandom to.
And the reasoning is two-fold:
- Abundance: Entertainer type, cover musicians like myself perform 3 to 4 times a week. I actually do have a group of people who are neither family nor strictly friends, but people who enjoy what I do, keep an eye on my calendar and occasionally show up to a gig or two a month. But they can't be expected to come literally every single gig.
- Entertainment as a Service: Entertainers barely play original music, which is where fans are made. Who can build a fandom off a cover of Johnny B Goode? I'm well aware of where I am in the music ecosystem. It's time venues got on the same page too.
Why Am I Bringing it Up Again?
The reason I'm writing all of this is because Trix Malarkey, a local musician who focuses heavily on original music, poetry and open mics, recently wrote an article on Noise Saigon about this same topic, but expanded upon it by including his view from the strictly originals world, and discussing the detrimental consequences of the practice on local scenes.
One of the consequences, which relates directly to myself and lots of musicians I play with weekly, is the concept of tribute bands.
What Exactly Are Tribute Bands?
In a nutshell, a tribute band is a group of people dedicated to playing the music of a sole artist or band, recreating the original sound as faithfully as possible.
Tribute Bands are what happens when venues place the entirety of the burden of audience presence on musicians. Shifting their role from musicians to event organizers.
In Europe, bands limited themselves to the sound of the band, recreating guitar tones and passages that would take hours to ace, and would not be worth the hassle for a nightly cover band. In the USA however, I've seen bands actually cosplay as the actual members, going as far as dressing up like them. In the UK, I know a Coldplay tribute band where the singer looks remarkably similar to Chris Martin!
While there is definitely merit to being in a tribute band (I'll get into that in another article, where I'll talk about why serious musicians need to be in an original, tribute and cover band). The explosion of them definitely signifies a moment for a local music scene.
Musicians want to play to large audiences, but building a fanbase gets harder every year, with shorter attention spans, busy work schedules and growing costs... The industry is more hostile to newbies than ever before.
Bands that have been in the business for 15+ years make packing a venue with 150 people look easy. But for newcomers, who still want to perform, and get paid doing so, it's just not viable in the short term.
Enter the tribute band. A project that gets hardcore fans of legacy bands out of the house, spending money, and creating a nice community along the way.
Tribute Bands in Vietnam
In Vietnam, the explosion of these bands has been even more dramatic for multiple reasons:
- Scarcity: Many of the bands that I see covered, either don't exist anymore, or never come to Vietnam. This offers local, and immigrant communities yearning to watch their favorite music live the opportunity to enjoy a show "made for them" rather than a generic cover night.
- Opportunity: Tribute bands are a new phenomena here, the market is already saturated in Europe, but in Vietnam, there isn't an AC/DC, Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers or even Guns n Roses tribute band. So the city is rife with bandleaders seizing their spots. Like myself with my Coldplay tribute band or my friend Tim with his Radiohead tribute band. Make no mistake, we are going to see at least double of these bands in 2027 and beyond.
- Seasonality: I've rarely seen a city with such massive dips and highs in live music audiences like Ho Chi Minh City. Bandleaders are having to get creative with their shows to bring people in.
Want to see a list of some of the tribute bands that I know around the city? Sign up and let me know in the members area!
What Does This Mean For the Scene?
At the end of the day, educating an entire audience population is far too large a burden for individual artists, especially those of us with full lives outside the rehearsal room.
Sure, we’d all love to see original shows drawing the massive crowds that tribute and legacy bands command. But that’s just not where the market is right now, and that’s the main point of difference between Trix and me. We share the same concerns about the scene, but view the outcome through different lenses. I see tribute bands as a logical response to what people are asking to hear. Will venues eventually get tired of repeating the same classic rock sets? Maybe. Maybe not. But whatever happens, I'd rather listen to the market than argue with it.
Where do you stand on this issue? Let me know in the comments below
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Adam Khan
Adam Khan
