Stage Talk with Rick Koster
Where every show has something to say.
A fun-time Garde music quiz to prep you before you see The THE BAND Band concert Friday!
Which of the following is true?
- Along with AI, tribute bands are taking over the world
- The Berklee School of Music has a new major on How to Form a Tribute Band
- There are now tribute bands of tribute bands
- Though awkwardly named, The THE BAND Band is the finest of all possible acts replicating the music of Garth Hudson, Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Levon Helm and Richard Manuel — which is to say, The Band
If you answered D, you’re right! In celebration, here’s an interview with Gary Solomon, co-founder of the long-running and nationally touring The THE BAND Band, who perform Friday in the Garde. Life is indeed a carnival!
The Garde: Gary, you were actually at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom on Thanksgiving night in 1976 when The Band played their farewell concert. Several iconic guests sat in, and Martin Scorcese filmed the event for his documentary The Last Waltz. Where do you think you’d be today if you’d stayed home eating turkey with the family instead of going to the show?
Solomon: Honestly, I’d probably be doing the same thing. I was a fan of The Band before I was at The Last Waltz concert, and I was a bigger fan afterward. I was 19 at that point and pretty much already committed to a life of music. I don’t necessarily know if I’d have had a tribute band, but who knows? The Band gave me an idea to shoot for. A pretty high bar, obviously, and ultimately what we do is still a pretty high bar. But I think we do a really good job at something we love.
Garde: One of the fascinating things about The Band is the vocal division of labor, if you will, within the group from song to song. Robbie did most of the writing, but it was pretty varied as to who sang what song, or which part of what song. How do you guys handle that dynamic? You’re the bass player, for example. Do you then sing the Danko vocal parts and so on?
Solomon: No. The way we do this — and the way we’ve done it since the beginning — is to let our passion for the music guide us. We’ve never in any shape or form tried to look or act like the individual personalities that made up The Band. That’s one legitimate way to go about having a tribute band, particularly if you’re doing something really visual like a Beatlemania thing.
But we’re strictly about recreating the music fans expect to hear. Musically I’m the bass player, so I play Rick Danko’s parts just as the other guys play their respective instrumental parts. Vocally, though, we sing whatever suits our individual voices best and that doesn’t always match what The Band did. We do pass around vocal parts like they did, and, for example, we can talk about Music From Big Pink, where they’re all swapping verses and reversing parts because that’s the character of the song. But we don’t do it in the same sequence as the original because we have different voices and we do what’s best to sound like the song.
Garde: Part of the legacy of The Band is that there was a lot of darkness in their individual lives and yet there was often great joy and exuberance in the presentation of the music. I wonder sometimes if one couldn’t exist without the other. Is that something that y’all have talked about or explored?
Solomon: Yeah, you know, human beings are complex creatures, and if you look closely, the members of The Band had their lives and issues just like anyone. But their lives were played out in the movies and books and on the Internet, and that happens to a lot of bands. I think if you take a cross-section of any person or situation, you’re going to have a mix of light and darkness.
For example, a lot was made of (Band pianist/vocalist) Richard Manuel’s addictions and his issues and, you know, his suicide. But everything I’ve learned — and I never knew any of them or have any inside information — he was a very funny and joyful guy. I think what we read or are drawn to learn more about will never be the whole picture. Artistically, it’s what a lot of comedians say: A great deal of the joy comes from the pain and the whole of the human experience.
Garde: I suspect when y’all hit the stage every night, you’re not just seeing people in their 60s and 70s who experienced The Band in real time. I’m hoping their music has transcended the generations.
Solomon: I can absolutely assure you that, while the overwhelming majority of our audiences are around our age and grew up listening to the music, there are a lot of younger folks who were turned onto the music by their parents or grandparents or maybe they saw The Last Waltz. It’s very gratifying to see younger people or even older people who maybe never heard The Band — and maybe they say, ‘I never saw The Band and now I kinda feel like I got that experience.’ I mean, we have no pretentions about the difference between the real thing and a tribute band, but we do our best and it’s been a privilege.