TRIBUTE BANDS COMING
Zoso
According to lead vocalist Matt Jernigan, the band plans on having four or five Led Zeppelin essentials on its playlist each night — can you say “Black Dog”? — while changing things up one evening to the next. And they have plenty to draw from, with more than 40 songs from the Zep catalog at their disposal.
8 p.m. Jan. 28, 8:30 p.m. Jan. 29-30. $20; $23 day of the show; $50 three-day pass. Variety Playhouse, 1099 Euclid Ave. N.E., Atlanta. 404-524-7354, variety-playhouse.com.
Rumours
Prepare for a full-on Fleetwood Mac attack as Rumours continues to make loving the band fun. “Gypsy,” “Go Your Own Way,” “Rhiannon,” “Don’t Stop” and other essentials likely will land on the set list. Rumours pulls double duty as Tom Petty torchbearer Refugee. Here’s betting they pull off the Petty-Nicks duet “Stop Dragging My Heart Around.” The Dirty Doors, an Atlanta-based Doors tribute, breaks on through earlier in the evening. Vocalist Reed Barrickman, the group’s own lizard king shaman, delivers a fresh-faced version of early Jim Morrison in cozy leather pants.
8 p.m. Jan. 30. $10 advance; $13 at the door; $75 VIP tables. Smith's Olde Bar, 1578 Piedmont Ave. N.E., Atlanta. 404-875-1522, smithsoldebar.com.
Appetite for Destruction
Amid news of key members of Guns N’ Roses locking and loading for a reunion in April at Coachella, this show at 37 Main in Johns Creek couldn’t be more timely. Fronted by Atlanta-based Chad Atkins as Axl Rose, Appetite first convened in 2001. Today, the band tours the country full time, welcoming audiences into its mock rock jungle of GNR’s choice tracks. “Sweet Child of Mine,” “Paradise City,” “Patience” and other hits mingle with deeper cuts. Not only does Atkins sound and look like Rose, he’s comfortable wrapping himself in a kilt and doing that signature snake dance shuffle. Party-rock cover band Moby Dick will open.
9 p.m. Jan. 29. $10; $50 reserved table for four; $250 VIP section for up to eight guests. 37 Main Johns Creek, 6000 Medlock Bridge Parkway, Johns Creek. 678-580-2329, 37main.com.
Don’t call it a cover band cop-out.
Tribute bands, often doppelgänger presentations of endearing acts, keep plugging in successfully. Have a mug like Paul McCartney’s and you can shake your mop top and hit the same notes? Then you might just rack up admirable ticket sales and have audiences flicking their lighters for encores.
A weekend of several lauded rock tributes kicks off early Jan. 28. Zoso, a Led Zeppelin act that sounds just like that well-worn cassette in your old high school Camaro, rambles into town for its first three-night stand at Variety Playhouse in Little Five Points. The venue seats about 1,000.
“We have about 15 markets now where we’re doing two nights,” said Zoso lead vocalist Matt Jernigan, a former Los Angeles resident who’s been calling St. Simons Island home since 2003. “For the past two years, we’ve done two nights and sold them out. So it was (the venue’s) idea to add a third. This will be our first three-nighter.”
That’s better than some touring original hit makers. Zoso performs between 140 and 150 shows annually all over the globe, and expects more in 2016.
“It’s so expensive to see some of these older classic rock bands,” said Atlantan Mekenzie Jackson, who does her best Stevie Nicks in Rumours, a Fleetwood Mac tribute playing Jan. 30 at Smith’s Olde Bar. “People who can’t afford to see it still want to see the real thing. So we made it a point that we sound and look just like Fleetwood Mac.”
Jackson and her bandmates, a conglomeration of Atlanta musicians, launched Rumours in late April of last year, with the band’s debut show at the Star Bar in Little Five Points. Like the landslide Jackson sings about onstage, the band took off almost immediately.
Among its successes are playing the House of Blues in Myrtle Beach, S.C., twice and scoring a sold-out show at the Georgia Theatre in Athens earlier this month.
Although Jackson, who also performs original music, never planned to Mac out for a living, she said she’s been studying Nicks since her tender years, a direct result of being raised by Fleetwood Mac fans. She recalls walking around the house at age 5 and singing like Nicks, her father befuddled by the resemblance.
“The coolest thing about it, hands down, is sharing the love you have for this band with other people who love it just as much as you do,” she said. “And it’s really cool to have people come up after shows and say, ‘I saw Fleetwood Mac in 1977, and you guys just nail it.’ … That’s awesome for us.”
Similar to the bands they portray, top-shelf tributes have long-lasting potential. Zoso has been serving up Zep sets for 20 years, with no plans of scaling the stairway to heaven anytime soon.
Unlike Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant, who coincidentally is said to have been sighted in recent years on Sea Island, near St. Simons, Jernigan still reaches the vocal stratosphere. He credits physical conditioning, endurance, clean living and singing from the diaphragm as reasons for his staying power.
“I think it’s more of a physical thing that you can endure over a period of time,” he said. “Age will eventually catch up with you, no matter what. So far, I’ve been fortunate to evade that. As long as there’s an audience, we’ll keep at it.”
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