Pink Floyd Tributes - which one is best?

Anybody seen/heard Manc Floyd? 

I've seen Pink Floyd four times, Roger Waters twice and Dave Gilmour once. To see Pink Floyd live was something wonderful and an almost hypnotic experience. However, I do sympathise with those who never had the chance to see such a wonderful show for whatever reason. For them, I recommend the Australian Pink Floyd show. Their set up is a scale-down version of Pink Floyd's stage set with slide and movie projections, turning vary-lites around a round screen, smoke, lasers and even floating (inflatable) pigs. They do a bang of a job with the music and even got to play with the real members of Pink Floyd at Dave Gilmour's birthday party where they were joined on stage by him and Rick wright. They also carry the right personnel with backup singers, extra guitars and keyboards, etc. They are definitely worth seeing.

The Aussie Floyd played all of The Wall and Dark Side and featured incredible laser show - i couldnt fault them... Next best thing to the real deal.

Alitare wrote: Slartibartfast wrote: Pink Floyd itself. Am I the only one who thinks he means Pink Floyd is the best Pink Floyd cover band, and possibly meant it in an insulting way?

I agree. I saw Roger Waters once, playing the complete DSOTM plus some other stuff, and I'd rate him slightly better than Aussie Floyd. Both are great tribute bands.

Pink Floyd music should be considered classical. Orchestra's live by playing music made by long-dead composers, why shouldn't rockbands live by playing music made by not-so-long-dead rockbands? As long as they do a good job, I'm all for it.

I have tickets to see Think Floyd on 4th July (good day for you folks stateside!!) at my favourite music venue, The Met at Bury.  I have seen them before and they are very very good.  The only band (Floyd or tribute) I've known to play the second half of Shine On You Crazy Diamond.

^

Any Floyd fans reading this from around Ottawa,Canada?If yes, then surely you've been to a 'Comfortably Numb' concert(Canada's Pink Floyd).

I saw them at The Opera House in Toronto and were excellent. I've also seen The Australian Pink Floyd Show, and although they had a much bigger stage show, C.N. were every bit as good as the Aussies were, technically speaking,and were not as uptight. Much looser and seemed to be having a better time on stage (no dancing or boogy.ing or stupid stuff like that, just smiling and less rigid) which projected to the audience and produced a much more enjoyable show,for my money anyways.

Huh, I didn't know there was a Tribute Band section, I'm branching out.

On the whole tribute band debate, I'm all for it. 

When any band puts on a concert they're putting on a show.  From old Genesis to current Brittney Spears a concert at it's most basic form is a group of musicians (or actors in the Spears analogy) playing a set of notes at the appropriate times.  I see a tribute band as similar to a second run of a play.  You can have a new set of actors, but the underlying masterpiece is still there.

I'm too young to have seen the 'classic' Genesis lineup, I was three when Peter Gabriel left the band.  On the other hand I've seen 'The Musical Box' twice.  Both times, they were amazing.  You're never going to see a well recorded version of Genesis doing 'The Lamb'; the technology just didn't exist at the time.  On the other hand, 'The Musical Box' recreates the show in it's entirety, with the input of the original band. 

Regarding the emotional attachment to music you haven't written, I think it's fair to say that you can be emotional about music that someone else wrote.  Take a look at half of the threads on this site and you'll see ten thousand examples of people being passionate and emotional about music written about others.

Finally, I take offense at the referral of a tribute band as a 'fake band'.  It takes just as much skill to play someone else's music as it does your own. 

I also have no problem with a band doing gigs to generate money.  I've been in an all originals band, there are times when you need to play the wedding or two to keep money in the coffers.  This is further compounded with the rampant downloading of music these days.  When a band finally does get enough momentum to release an album, they either give it out for free to generate interest or end up having twenty five thousand kids download it on using the latest peer to peer technology.

I don't know all of the specifics of this instance but Ryo Okumoto had a medical issue that left him unable to play for a few months.  At that point, the Spock's Beard website requested donations to help him pay his bills.  Do I have a problem if a band plays a gig 'for the money', no, at least they're doing a job that they love.

Sorry to rant, but the comment of a 'fake band' sounds unfair to a large group of musicians attempting to make a living doing something that they love.

I've seen Pink Voyd live, they were pretty damn good.  If they sounded more British it would work perfectly.  haha

http://www.pinkvoyd.com/

I'm fortunate to have seen a number of Floyd tributes, which I rate as follows:-

The Australian Pink Floyd Show - outstanding; the overall best, seeing Aussie Floyd is virtually like seeing the real Floyd, they're that good & they feature the full Floyd light show.
Think Floyd - excellent, a high degree of accuracy to the albums, & the only band I've seen play the entirety of 'Shine on You Crazy Diamond', which I was very impressed with.
Off The Wall - very good, female guitarist/singer sang not only 'Great Gig in the Sky' very well.  I thought this band seemed very professional.
Pynk Floyd - Good around the pubs, they seem to have problems keeping singers, but I rate their guitarist.  I don't they've been going long so that considered, I think they're doing really well.  I've got a soft spot for them as well coz they play one of my local pubs (The Moses Gate in Bolton) very frequently.
Shine On - I saw these at the Farmyard Party bike rally and I'd had a few, but I remember enjoying them!
Floyd 2 - These sounded good but their regular singer was ill and the sax player had to sing.  I'd like to see them again with their full line-up.
Pulse: Echoes of Floyd - it was yonks ago and I was right at the back, couldn't see 'em but they sounded OK.

Hope this is useful!!  Regards, Pogo.