Tributosaurus
Article Tools
More The Bucket List
More than a schmaltzy piece of clichéd dreck with Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, and Sean Hayes, the bucket list is a giant to-do list of things we all vow to do someday, maybe, or at least when friends from out of town stop by and crash on our air mattress. Sensing our own mortality, The A.V. Club gets the jump on death and vows to check out every “you’ve never seen ____?!” in town, determining whether it was worth the wait or worth dying having not experienced it. It's time for a visit to a Tributosaurus concert, that evergreen group with an endless catalog of tunes.
Name a band, and Tributosaurus probably knows how to play at least one of its songs. Since 2002, the local musical chameleons have been covering a different band every month (with a few breaks), ranging from The Rolling Stones to Supertramp and Yes. They learn the music, hone the vocal cadence, and add singers or instrumentalists as needed—Tributosaurus has five core members, but it assembles a custom team best suited for each band it covers.
This last point played out at my inaugural Tributosaurus trip last month to its regular haunt, Martyrs', where the group took on the tunes of the late pop legend Michael Jackson. (The band says he was on the schedule long before he died.) It took six people to cover Jackson's vocal range. "Sometimes, you need the right tools for the job," said one Tributosaurus member while introducing the first singer, "so we found someone who could do what we"—indicating a bunch of white dudes—"can't."
Looking around at the Wednesday night crowd—well-to-do young professionals and older couples milling about in large groups—I was struck with the fear I've always had about Tributosaurus: that they'd be nothing more than a novelty act. I'd seen a few people hop out of houses around the corner and walk right in. Clearly, they knew what to expect, and I wondered if consistency and predictability would lend an unfortunate gimmick to the show. Plus, the band was talking about things like "tools" and "jobs", which made the whole thing feel awfully technical. I cringed.
But within five seconds of the first song, a rendition of "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" practically oozing with happiness, I was a total convert. The line of back-up singers danced in sync off to the side, the guitarists nodded along to the notes with knowing smiles, and the instrumentalists—an entire brass and string section—looked out at the audience. One woman even made eyes with specific people and insisted they clap along. And musically, goddammit, Tributosaurus was great. They orchestrated a complicated arrangement of notes and instruments, sounding just like the recorded version, which was really impressive live.
Tributosaurus might be consistent, but it's certainly not boring: the group approaches each song with infectious optimism. Each singer would tackle one or two before giving up the microphone to the next. The first singer took on the songs in MJ's lower register (including "Black Or White" and "Off The Wall," which Tributosaurus posits is responsible for Justin Timberlake's entire career), while two other guys attacked the middle-range ("Beat It") and the highest high voice ("Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough"). The even-higher register saw a female singer, who treated all the Jackson 5 songs, and a few were sung by the two resident Tributosaurus house singers, like the rousing "Smooth Criminal." The constant switching back-and-forth meant singers had to be on their toes, and the audience welcomed each voice back to the mic.
The heart of a Tributosaurus show seems to be the audience itself. By the end of Michael Jackson's tribute, just about everyone had ventured to the center of the dance floor to try out some signature MJ moves. I saw a lot of awkward moon-walking and how-is-this-not-more-awkward crotch grabs, but mostly people just geeked out on Michael Jackson tunes. For one night, you're allowed to be a superfan of a group whose music you might not even like, the songs done up by a band dedicated to getting them right. Tributosaurus demonstrates that there's nothing hollow about striving to be crowd-pleasing. An enthusiastic pass at the rap from "Black Or White" isn't any less fun just because it's a cover.
Tributosaurus does two shows tonight at Martyrs', covering Jimi Hendrix. Here's their take on Journey from a while back:
