Climax Blues Band – Tribute or not?
Well. I loved the deep growling sound of Colin Cooper on ‘Couldn’t Get It Right’ way back when (mid Seventies, if you must know). Billboard winner too, at the time. So I grabbed the chance to see Climax Blues Band at The Forge last Thursday. Could be the last time they played, eh? Even took the girls.
And on came the band.
The rhythm guitarist looked a bit young, but I let it pass. He was bloody good. So was the sax chap. And the drummer. In sympathy too with his northern accent, the lead singer wore his cap (flat, not baseball) pointing backward in the manner of a genuine, still performing, seventies musical turn so I guessed he must be really ancient. (Well, what could I see in that dimpsy light?) And what a voice! Probably the original chap, eh, botoxed up? After all, the keyboard player played Glasto’ in ’81.
‘Hey Dad – the rhythm guitar chap looks a bit young’ said one of the girls, (I let it pass) ‘and the audience all look like you’ Yeah, with a tenuous grasp on independent locomotion. Were they dancing – or falling? The place wasn’t rammed so any form of locomotion – intended or otherwise – occurred in a nicely benign, lightly cushioned, environment. That’s a thought!
Where was everybody else?
‘Hey Dad, says here,’ said the other girl, laughing, reading from her phone, ‘Currently, the band continues to tour without any remaining original members.’ Bloody Wikipedia! I’ve been diddled! Colin Cooper died in 2008!
It’s a fuckin’ tribute band! Weddings and Bar Mitzvahs a speciality!
Or is it? Got me thinking. Is a band just a name – something to swap bits in and out of like a lego toy – or is it something pure, something distilled from the magic of the original few? You tell me.
Anyway. I had a good time. So did the girls. And, in the end, perhaps that’s all that matters.
by Chris Parkinson
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