I have received some brochures from some local theatre's. Again it's page after page of tribute bands or some very generic rock cover band. I wouldn't call them cheap to see these bands, unlike the old days.

Before the Plandemic the venues used to be booked of famous and semi famous bands even the smallest of venues.

Yes, tribute bands can put bums on seats if they are well established, there is a Beatles tribute band that has been sale since about September and it's only half booked still. The Beatles tribute bands I have been told that are worth seeing are Rain, Bootleg Beatles and the Fab Four.

The Pink Floyd band has about 10 tickets left and they were released a few weeks before Christmas.

I have noticed that the same venues will book several Genesis, Blondie, Beatles, Foo Fighters, AC/DC, Bon Jovi, GNR tributes. Talk about stepping on toes.

I wouldn't mind seeing a Bjorn Again tribute band.

I love the Clearwater Creedence Revival. When my partner booked she thought it was John Fogerty. We will be seeing them again in a few months.

There are plans to reopen the main venue here so hopefully we might have a live music scene again. According to other forum's Rich, people love going to Milton Keynes for their live music. Especially for legendary and heritage bands. I was thinking of seeing Mike and the Mechanics but couldn't justify spending nearly £60. I am seeing a Logicaltramp which I only knew from word of mouth. I do love Supertramp.

Have you booked for The Enid and Stray yet Rich?

Green Man wrote:
I love the Clearwater Creedence Revival. When my partner booked she thought it was John Fogerty. We will be seeing them again in a few months.

There are plans to reopen the main venue here so hopefully we might have a live music scene again. According to other forum's Rich, people love going to Milton Keynes for their live music. Especially for legendary and heritage bands. I was thinking of seeing Mike and the Mechanics but couldn't justify spending nearly £60. I am seeing a Logicaltramp which I only knew from word of mouth. I do love Supertramp.

Have you booked for The Enid and Stray yet Rich?

That's interesting to know what people say elsewhere about my area as a music location. I always think of the place primarily in terms of the MK Bowl or The Stables. The answer to your question is not yet, I seem to fall back into familiarity nowadays. You obviously really like those two acts. If you like something it's always good to try and get others to give them a go.

Interesting points Rich. Craufurd Arms is a stomping ground for people to see legacy bands.

I did get an alert on the Mighty Wah! tour for 2025. They are not playing near me sadly but I think Pete Wylie is the UK Bob Dylan when it comes to lyrics.

www.thecraufurdarms.com/events/2025-04-2...ah-the-craufurd-arms

Talking of tribute bands. It's always worth seeing Kast Off Kinks even the stories behind each song is interesting to listen to. I am still not sure if Mick Avory's health has improved.

The Mighty Wah!, can it really be 42 years this month since The Story Of The Blues was their debut.

I really don't like being able to remember things from so long ago now as if they were still yesterday.

One thing I've noticed with a lot of original groups from long ago is just how many are still going, and how quite a few of them who were first around decades ago had a long gap and then reformed over the last few years and have remained together longer than originally in the later phase. Soft Cell are a good example of this whom I really rate.

One of the best songs ever written.

I lost of the Mighty Wah records I once had. They are not easy or cheap to replace. I still have one Wah LP that was not taken from me.

Green Man wrote:
One of the best songs ever written.

I lost of the Mighty Wah records I once had. They are not easy or cheap to replace. I still have one Wah LP that was not taken from me.

How do you lose your records GM? Surely you didn't lend them and not get them given back to you.

My mother still has all hers going back to 1957, although about 50 of the singles have completely lost those flimsy paper covers with a hole in the middle that they used to have in those days and really ought to get given new sleeves to protect them.

I remember that Wah! song coming out in early '83 very well, it seemed different but I also remember not liking the production of it very much, setting the actual song aside. I like a bit of bass on music, or I certainly did at the time and I thought it sounded a bit tinny. In the middle 80's I became quite obsessed about what I considered to be tinny sounding songs coming out that sounded lacking. Do you know what I mean when I say this? I haven't heard that Wah! song for quite a while so if I listen to it again I may have completely changed my view now!

Wah! and Wham! came out with debut hits within weeks of each other back then (both hit No3 too) and I always kind of paired them up because their names looked so similar and ended with an exclamation mark. They didn't prefix it with the "Mighty" bit on that first one.

I use to lend records a lot I didn't always get them back. My ex was selling them bit by bit, the cow. I have also been burgled twice. The Americana music was left behind. Prog rock and 80s stuff in general was taken. There's value in that stuff. Even my green vinyl of Linda Ronstadt was taken.

Interesting what you call tinny Rich. In the 80s I listened to a a lot rock and metal. I thought the hair metal scene was amazing and great for dancing to. I didn't like the ballads these bands did though. I spent most of the 80s in New York and Canada Rich. I was exposed to many different genres and even country rock for the first time, none of the naff honky tonk stuff.

When I saw Alabama on TV for the first time, I became obsessed with their music. Lyrics are not relatable to me as such but they have that good ol' boy vibe. Strangely their collaboration with Nsync is not corny nor cringy.


80s had a genre's for everyone who liked music. If you didn't like pop there was electronic, didn't like metal there was synth pop, didn't like metal or synth there was country rock. I bought a lot Reba McEntire records, she was gorgeous even before she had surgery.

There used to be a late night chat on Radio 5 Live called the Virtual Jukebox that I'd listen to each weekend for an hour or so. I remember one time they discussed what they described as the very poor production values that seemed to creep into many records in about 1986/7, and I agreed. For some reason they singled out the only hit record that Barry White had in the whole decade from late '87, Sho' You Right. I thought his music that had been produced 10 years or more earlier had better production values and therefore we were going backwards, even compared to the first half of the 80's with great production on many tracks.

I never listen to Radio 5 Live anymore, they even managed to drag their weekly music discussion Virtual Jukebox on for so many years with the same guests each week they ended up repeating themselves and boring the pants off people with a keen interest in the subject. But it was cheap radio I guess. They held a vote each week on a track for the jukebox and I wrote a forum comment elsewhere questioning how many votes the winning track was receiving. Dotun Adebayo answered me over the air and said it was maybe just a couple of votes some nights. I gave up on it and turned off, bored witless they could turn what should be an interesting subject into such mind numbing drivel, and I remember the presenter on 5 Live made out he knew loads about music but made so many basic and big mistakes when talking the subject I couldn't believe my ears at times. But then he's an unsackable diversity hire. He made out on air one night that he had been in the recording studio at the time of a particular black music record that was a hit in the 90's, only for the artist to get in touch and deny that he had ever been near the place and that it was untrue, caught out on air. I took all the other puffed up self important anecdotes he'd also said about music connections and associations less seriously after that. Not absolutely certain but I think the artist was Omar who had the hit song There's Nothing Like This.

Rich wrote:
There used to be a late night chat on Radio 5 Live called the Virtual Jukebox that I'd listen to each weekend for an hour or so. I remember one time they discussed what they described as the very poor production values that seemed to creep into many records in about 1986/7, and I agreed. For some reason they singled out the only hit record that Barry White had in the whole decade from late '87, Sho' You Right. I thought his music that had been produced 10 years or more earlier had better production values and therefore we were going backwards, even compared to the first half of the 80's with great production on many tracks.

I never listen to Radio 5 Live anymore, they even managed to drag their weekly music discussion Virtual Jukebox on for so many years with the same guests each week they ended up repeating themselves and boring the pants off people with a keen interest in the subject. But it was cheap radio I guess. They held a vote each week on a track for the jukebox and I wrote a forum comment elsewhere questioning how many votes the winning track was receiving. Dotun Adebayo answered me over the air and said it was maybe just a couple of votes some nights. I gave up on it and turned off, bored witless they could turn what should be an interesting subject into such mind numbing drivel, and I remember the presenter on 5 Live made out he knew loads about music but made so many basic and big mistakes when talking the subject I couldn't believe my ears at times. But then he's an unsackable diversity hire. He made out on air one night that he had been in the recording studio at the time of a particular black music record that was a hit in the 90's, only for the artist to get in touch and deny that he had ever been near the place and that it was untrue, caught out on air. I took all the other puffed up self important anecdotes he'd also said about music connections and associations less seriously after that. Not absolutely certain but I think the artist was Omar who had the hit song There's Nothing Like This.

It seems the UK radio DJs were full of shit back then Rich. I do remember bits when Jonathan King did a talk radio segments in New York, doing some really odd interviews. I have to ask my mates to see if they have any home recordings of these.

There one American DJ who I respected and he did wonderful interviews with many British talent was Scott Muni. I can't believe it was over 40 years ago when I was in New York.

I found Canadian radio and TV very dull, I found Canada to be shit period. Unless you go to the mountains and the wilderness, then it's beautiful.