Tribute Band Rant # 2

So as noted before... almost all classical music concerts are basically really good cover bands going at it, but they don't dress up like the original composers/performers. Then you have rock tribute bands such as the endless stream of Beatle doppelbangers that attempt to sound - and look - like the original artists.

But then there's this: Just got an email that Roy Orbison is playing at the Wiltern in October. Last I checked, Roy is particularly dead and has been for some time. So is this just another cover band? Tribute band? Not exactly. Turns out it shall be a hologram of Mr. Orbison along with live backing musicians. Well, it's not really a hologram per se.

Far in advance of the event, an actor/body double "performs" the concert. Then CGI folks superimpose the image of the once-not-dead artist onto the footage, which then projects full-size via a 3-D laser onto the stage. During the show, the band must sync up precisely to "Roy's" movements and prerecorded vocals. If they nail it, it'll be convincing enough to fool any attendees who don't realize Orbison is dead. Yep. Odds are, some clueless member of that audience won't have prior knowledge of Orbison's decades-old and stubbornly lingering demise.

The hologram/3-D/whatever you want to call it phenomenon is not a new thing. "Tupac" greeted the peeps at Coachella in 2012. "Michael Jackson" appeared at the 2014 Billboard awards. "Ronnie James Dio" toured Europe last year. And you don't have to be dead either. The very-much-still-alive (biologically, at least) ABBA is planning a hologram tour. Still, you don't see tons of these concerts listed on Ticketmaster at the moment. Orbison's estate had to sanction use of the very, very late singer's images/voice for this tour, so there are legal issues involved on top of the technical challenges.

Still, this sort of thing is not going away - and it could "blow up" in the coming years, especially as more iconic musicians kick their proverbial buckets and surviving fans pine for "the next best thing." Imagine popping into your little local neighborhood dive bar for "CGI Fridays" to check out your favorite rock corpse parading on stage. A few Jaeger shots strategically mixed with your suspect beers and you might forget you are really staring at... well, nothing at all. Then again, it's not all that different from any other day.