Description
Originating in the late 1970s with the Broadway production Beatlemania, the tribute phenomenon has grown into a global industry, providing a musical simulacrum for fans eager to relive an experience that might have occurred decades earlier. Due in part to the current climate of pop-music fans' near-obsessive interest in their own cultural artifacts, tribute bands have thrived in the twenty-first century. Also contributing to the rise of the tribute phenomenon has been the unprecedented access to previously recorded material, which has not only allowed fans to become familiar with music and performances from the past, but also made it easier than ever for tribute performers to replicate original acts in nearly every way -- specific musical instruments and accessories, performance techniques, on-stage mannerisms, costumes and hairstyles, and vocal inflection, to name just a few. Aided by cues offered by audio and video recordings, tribute musicians are in a unique position to accurately recreate the music of the past, potentially resulting in an authentic musical experience for audiences who may never have had the chance to see a particular original act in concert. This thesis considers tribute performers in the context of a seven-category model that examines their musical, visual and ephemeral qualities, and uses it to evaluate the efforts of three veteran tribute acts to accurately simulate an original act's concert experience in order to create a hyperreality. That hyperreality, in turn, can yield an authentic performance, enabling audiences to effectively experience an occurrence that is otherwise no longer possible to realize. The findings of this research suggest that, through meticulous attention to detail and an unwavering desire to carry on the musical legacy of an original act whose members no longer perform together, tribute musicians can create an authentic musical experience for fans by establishing a hyperreality based on the accuracy of their imitation.
