I am a big fan of The Who, but have never seen them play live – indeed, I have no particular desire to do so. Maintaining that a trio of geriatrics without Keith Moon is something less than the “real thing” anyway, I remain content to have enjoyed two performances by tribute bands The Maximum Who and Who’s Who.
The success of other tribute bands, such as Bjorn Again and The Bootleg Beatles, suggests that many pop fans are also happy with the fake article. Why? On the surface, the proliferation of tribute bands since the early 1990s can be explained as owing to the exigencies of time and money: the real artists were too old, too expensive, had split up, or were just plain dead.
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