The Lucky Jackson Band and Dave Matthews Ba-, er, Trippin' Billies

This past weekend I was invited to the House of Blues to see Trippin' Billies, a Dave Matthews Band tribute band. I've seen DMB in concert several times across multiple states since the early 90s, so I was excited to see how well Trippin' Billies could replicate their sound.

We had been under the impression that the main act started around 9, but they actually didn't go on until 10:30, so we caught most of the opening group, The Lucky Jackson Band. I knew nothing about them, and for the first few songs I actually thought that they were a Bruce Springsteen tribute band or something--the lead singer sounded EXACTLY like The Boss, it was freaky! If you don't believe me, click here and play song #8, Too Many Love Songs. Their CD is now on iTunes, if you're interested...

To be clear, they are NOT a Bruce Springsteen cover band, they are just their own band with their own songs and they were pretty fun to watch. I think unfortunately for them they may sound a little too much like Bruce and the E-Street Band, which could turn people off--like they're trying to be copycats or something. But I personally thought they put on a good show. For those of you in Chicago, they have a song called Lincoln Park Trixie which is pretty funny and can be accessed from the same link above.

When the time came for Trippin' Billies to perform, I was ready to hear some songs that I could sing along with. While they didn't play all of my favorites (or if they did, they played them after I left at midnight), they played several that I knew, including Dream Girl, Grey Street, Everyday, Satellite and #41.

What kind of threw me was that the lead singer looked nothing like Dave Matthews, but he sounded just like him. So I basically didn't want to look at the stage or it would ruin the illusion for me. I think the band sounded closer to the "real" band than the singer sounded like Dave, though.

You can see a video of them playing Ants Marching here. The lead singer I saw looked nothing like the guy in this video... it's either now a different guy, or he grew his hair out to look like that floppy-haired kid Erik (the "ice cream scooper") from the current season of Survivor. Anyway, I thought the lead singer I saw sounded a lot more like Dave than the guy in the linked video.

All of this has inspired me to list my Top Six Favorite Dave Matthews Band songs. Here they are, in no particular order:

Grace is Gone
Say Goodbye
Crush
Crash Into Me
#41
Long Black Veil (some may cry "Blasphemy!" but I like his version (I don't think the band was with him on this one) better than Johnny Cash's)

If you've never seen or heard it, here it is:

As for the songs I don't like from DMB... there aren't too many, but the one that comes to mind right away is Proudest Monkey. I don't even like the title. Proudest Monkey?!?

- e