On a Friday night last summer in Northeast Ohio, the past was present—onstage, mic-checked, and sold out. In the packed Music Box Supper Club in the Cleveland Flats, a band called Mister Breeze struck up the opening chords of “Free Bird” to end a raucous show, and for the moment it didn’t matter that Lynyrd Skynyrd couldn’t possibly be in the building. The distinctly silver-tinted crowd sang loud, certain and grateful, slow dancing and settling their checks with the wait staff. They were home by 11.
Across the region, from lakefront bars to old-school theaters, tribute bands are turning nostalgia into one of the most reliable tickets in live music. Live music original to Queen, Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, ABBA, Fleetwood Mac and scores of other acts is filling clubs and outdoor stages in a fractured digital age where the surest way to bring people together is to give them something they know by heart.
“Without tribute bands, the ecosystem—the venues and clubs that play live music as we know it—would be gone,” said Andy Singer, CEO & founder of the National Tribute Band Association, based in Orange, Calif. “There’s no way a venue can sustain without tribute bands anymore.”…