Don’t stop believin’: Music fans’ love of the sounds of the ’70s and ’80s showing no signs of slowing down

To my dad, the music of my youth was nothing more than a cacophony of caterwauling. “Back in Black”? “Bohemian Rhapsody”? Bismillah, no. No. No. No. No!

George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin? To Ralph, they were the real deal. 

“No one knows how to write a song anymore,” he would tell me with a defeated sigh, condemning an entire generation of brilliant 1970s and ’80s rock composers to Glenn Miller’s dustbin.

Just last week, right on (delayed) cue, I caught myself saying to someone half my age who was going on about the virtues of Justin Bieber’s latest chart-topping electropop mumblings: “Where is the craft?” (And, for emphasis, I said it again – because old people do that): “Where is the craft???”

And, while we’re at it: “Get offa my lawn!”

But every single time I hear “Bohemian Rhapsody,” I am transported back to 1976, screaming those nonsensical operatic Freddy Mercury lyrics in Jimmy Krattenmaker’s living room at the top of our lungs, blown away that KIMN Radio was actually airing the runaway song of the summer for its full six minutes. This unfamiliar suicide opus was so mind-expanding, so sophisticated in structure, it was like being introduced to classical music – and liking it.  

“I’ll tell you what, people like reliving their past,” said Chris Reidy, since 2013 the bass player for the wildly popular 1970s cover band Mr. Majestyk’s 8-Track Revival. “We’re kind of like a time machine to their youth.”

Like I said!

No offense to Rosemary Clooney, dad, but Roger Waters, Pete Townshend, Carole King, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Scholz and Joni Mitchell knew how to write a song, too.

And that – whatever “that” is – is why, 50 years later, tribute bands and cover bands remain among the most bankable and beloved concert experiences in Denver or, really, anywhere. And they are everywhere.

On March 28, I was among a family of 15 who squeezed into the packed Buffalo Rose in Golden with 600 others to again watch Mr. Majestyk, whose title was inspired by a 1974 Charles Bronson action film. If you don’t know, this is a band that sends boomers booming. It has them dancing, sweating and scream-alonging. Only the age range in our group alone was 32 to 89.

To Maura McCormick, it’s not just that Mr. Majestyk performs the best songs from the ‘70s. “It’s that they do it in the best way possible,” she said. She means the impeccable musicianship, led by relatively new frontman Alton King. She means the sound. The lighting. The three essential string players. 

“The musicians are amazing – every single one of them,” McCormick said. “They are the whole package.”

And, no, it doesn’t hurt that the baby of the band, keyboardist Jonathan “JC” Cernan, gives the 8-Trackers a little Tiger Beat pin-up material. After all, he’s a youngster of just barely 40. (You should hear these ladies! It’s both funny … and a little alarming.) 

“He is a good-looking man,” Reidy acknowledged with a laugh.

“But everybody had their favorite Beatle, and I think it kind of works that way here, too. At one point, we were going to make trading cards as a joke. You know: ‘Collect them all!’ But you can still have your favorite.”

It wouldn’t matter, he said, if the music didn’t matter.

“The music of the ‘70s takes me back to being a 6-year old listening to Kansas or Boston or Heart,” Reidy said. “I think this music holds such a great place in people’s hearts because back then, it was just so good. “Back then, when you recorded on tape – you had nothing to fix you. You had to have talent. You had to have skill. And that’s not the case anymore, because anything can be ‘fixed.’

“In my heart, this music will never go away because it was so real and so organic.”

How big is this phenomenon? 

There was a time when the very idea of a “tribute concert” conjured cover songs served with a saxophone full of cheese. No more.

The tribute band industry in the United States is, in a word, massive, generating an estimated 1.7 million annual ticket sales. Tribute acts now constitute more than 25% of all live music bookings in some markets, with more than 15,000 tribute bands operating across the U.S. and Canada, according to TSE Entertainment.

Tribute bands often regularly sell out theaters and arenas with sales fueled by nostalgia and increasing production values. Plus, the cost of tickets to see original artists in concert is skyrocketing, which makes cover bands an even more attractive alternative.

The biggest of these tribute bands tour nationally and operate much like any other zeitgeist band. Take, for example, Jerry’s Middle Finger, an L.A.-based Jerry Garcia tribute band that will play May 8-9 at Ophelia’s Electric Soap Box in downtown Denver.

You’ve likely heard of Super Diamond, a San Francisco cover band that has been playing “Sweet Caroline” at up to 80 events a year since 1993, including selling out the Hollywood Bowl. The band charges up to $30,000 per event.

Locally, where most venues allow for bands to play live for anywhere between a few dozen and a few thousand people, successful tribute bands earn some of the highest concert payouts of all. Just consider the math on that Mr. Majestyk show at the Buffalo Rose. With 600 tickets going for between $32-$55, it’s safe to estimate that the show grossed about $24,000. No one talks much on the record about band splits, but it’s safe to say Mr. Majestyk, even with its eight members and handlers, fared far better than most other bands playing around the metro that night.

“I have been playing in bands my whole life, and I never come close to what we are making as Mr. Majestyk,” Reidy said. “This band’s popularity really has elevated us to a level of revenue that enables many things to happen that enhance our shows. We can afford to have a dedicated sound engineer, and we have the ability to bring in a huge light show to add to the experience. This greatly increases our expense budget, but it’s one of the things that separates us from other bands – and we are all willing to make that investment to make sure our shows are epic.”

Meet the Jerseys devils

Tribute bands often build the kind of fervid fan loyalty over time that contemporary bands would stage-dive for. Paul Dwyer, an area actor who was long the public face of the Country Dinner Playhouse before it abruptly closed in 2007, is part of a longtime Four Seasons tribute band called The Jerseys, along with three of his Playhouse actor buddies – Brian Smith, Randy St. Pierre and Klint Rudolph.

But he’s recognized around town for more than his time on a stage. Like, say – from church.

“It’s funny because a nice older lady came up to me during one show and said, ‘Hey, can I request a song from you, Paul?’ And I was like, ‘Wow, she knows my real name,'” Dwyer said. “And so, she says, ‘We’d love to hear you sing ‘Macarena,’ because you sounded so beautiful singing ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ at my husband’s funeral.’”

Bet that’s never happened to Bieber.

“I told her, ‘We’ll sing it for you – but I must warn you, it’s going to sound a little different than ‘The Lord’s Prayer,’” Dwyer said with a laugh.

McCormick has been to at least a dozen Mr. Majestyk concerts since 2017. Each new show announcement becomes an automatic night out for she and her friends. Doesn’t matter where. May 30 at the Federal Theatre? She’s all in.

The band never gets old, she said, because the songs always change. So, even, has the frontman. No matter. She’s true-blue. 

McCormick absolutely adored founding singer Mark Devine for his voice, his theatricality, his outrageous costumes and his long, Fabio-like blonde hair – which is kind of funny, considering that his replacement, Alton King, is a dead ringer for the guy who played bad-boy cop Vic Mackey on “The Shield.”

“The thing you need to know about Alton is that the man is simply phenomenal,” Reidy said. “I’m actually in another band with him called Message in a Bottle, which is a tribute to The Police – and he’s phenomenal. This man sounds more like Sting than Sting sounds like Sting.”

The important thing to McCormick is that, no matter what changes, the Majestyk vibe stays the same.

“They’re just really super-talented, the crowd is always fun, and everybody is really pumped up to be there,” she said. “But what I love more than anything else is that it has always felt like such a safe place.

“That time of my life in the ’70s was nothing like it is now. As a teenager, you didn’t have any of the responsibilities you have now, and I’m sure that a big part of my loving the band so much is because it brings me back to an easier time, a happier time with less worries. These songs bring back memories from better times. We all sing and dance and laugh all night. What’s not to love?”

Gigging for good

Denver’s oldest garage band is thought to be The Duke Street Kings, a group of high-school buddies who have knocked around the badlands of Denver’s Front Range for 45 years now. And they might be the only garage band in the world that is also a bona-fide registered charity. For 29 years, the band has presented the annual Blues ’n BBQ Music Festival, which returns to Citizens’ Park on June 20 as the renamed Edgewater Music Festival. In that time, the band has raised $530,000 for Habitat for Humanity and its affordable housing mission.

They were founded by Ranger Miller, a Holy Family High School roustabout who went on to a decorated career as a United Airlines captain. The boys mostly play covers spanning the Allman Brothers to the Rolling Stones to the Stray Cats to Smashmouth. Miller’s two sons have sat in with the band since they were 10, and he’s since launched a Springsteen tribute band called, natch, Glory Days.

“I hope other people can find the happiness in their own lives that I find every time I get to play ‘Rosalita’ on stage with both of my sons,” Miller said.

He certainly doesn’t do it for the riches. “If we ever walk away from a gig with $50 each, that’s a pretty damn good gig,” Miller said with a laugh.

Here in Denver, we have not only the aforementioned Jerseys (who are boys) and the Journey Girls. We have Elton Dan and the Rocket Band. We have Back Stabbath and the Dirty Femmes. Coming this week to Nissi’s Event Center in Lafayette are both Shelvis and the Roustabouts (May 7) and That Eighties Band (May 8). The list of cheekily-named bands goes on forever.

The Jerseys have been playing together for 20 years now. “It started when we were hired by one of the actual producers of ‘Jersey Boys’ – the Broadway musical,” Dwyer said. “He lived in Aspen, and he hired us to come up for a one-night gig. But during that show, we were offered a couple of different jobs, and we’ve been doing it ever since.”

They’ve expanded the catalogue to include hits from the ’50s to today – but what really drives fans wild is their popular medley of old-time TV show theme songs. Even now hovering around age 60, they are still gyrating their hips executing the Four Seasons’ signature heel-toe step and upper-body swing. (It’s called the “Ragdoll Walk.”)

Dwyer and his Four Seasons buddies have been knocking around the circuit for so long that one adorable picture on the group’s website has become downright archival.

“There was a kid who came to one of our shows when he was tiny, and he got so into us that his family bought him a matching red jacket to look just like the Jersey Boys,” Dwyer said. “This year, he went off to college and is studying music to be in his own band.”

Dwyer swears the kid did not too terribly skew the average age of The Jerseys’ fan base. 

“It sounds strange, but I can say with total confidence that our core audience runs from their early 30s through their 70s,” Dwyer said. “I think the ease of downloading music these days has made the music of the Four Seasons available to many new and younger fans.”

He cites the ongoing phenomenon of the Four Seasons’ 1967 hit “Beggin’,” which was covered by an Italian rock band called Måneskin in 2017 and went viral in 2021. The song was also included in the TV series “The Crown.” And it’s seemingly omnipresent on TikTok. But just think how many movies have tapped into songs like “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” “Oh, What a Night” and “Walk Like a Man.”

“It’s funny because this is music that was even before OUR time,” Dwyer said with a laugh. “But people still love it, including young people who are discovering it for the first time.”

Still, the time will surely come when the generations again part ways.

“Just think of the crap that our kids’ kids will be listening to one day,” Reidy said with a laugh. “Our kids will be saying to their kids: “My God … what … is … that?”

It’s only rock ‘n roll.

John Moore is the Denver Gazette’s Senior Arts Journalist. Email him at [email protected].

• Read more about Denver’s Duke Street Kings

A selection of upcoming area tribute shows: 

• Shelvis and the Roustabouts (Elvis and more, May 7) at Nissi’s, Lafayette

• That Eighties Band (May 8) at Nissi’s, Lafayette

• Still They Ride (Journey, May 8) at the Buffalo Rose

• Jerry’s Middle Finger (Jerry Garcia, May 8-9), at Ophelia’s (based in L.A.) 

• Forever Dangerous (Michael Jackson), May 9 at the Buffalo Rose

• Captain Quirk and Friends (The Beatles, May 10), at the Clocktower Cabaret

• Call Me Dragon and Flannel Sheets (White Stripes, Fallout Boy, Sum 41, Jimmy Eat World), May 15 at the Oriental 

• 6 Million Dollar Band (all things ‘80s) May 15 at the Buffalo Rose

• Tributes to the B-52’s, Madonna and Pat Benatar, May 29 at the Federal

• Rush Archives, May 29 at the Buffalo Rose

• Tributes to Depeche Mode, Filter, and INXS, May 30 at the Oriental

• Mr. Majestyk’s 8-Track Revival (‘70s rock), May 30 at the Federal

• Rumours (Fleetwood Mac), June 6 at Ophelia’s 

• Big Pocket Band (tribute to Sade), June 14 at the Clocktower Cabaret

• Duke Street Kings at the Edgewater Music Festival (variety), June 20 at Citizens’ Park

• Colorado Springsteen, July 1 at Four Mile Historic Park (via Swallow Hill Music Hall) 

• The Jerseys (Four Seasons and more), July 12 at Cherokee Castle in Castle Pines

Mr. Majestyk’s 8-Track Revival

• Alton King, lead vocals 
• Jeff LaQuatra, guitar
• Jonathan ‘JC’ Cernan, keyboard and vocals
• Chris Reidy, bass
• Jerry Bousquet, drums
• Giga Romero,violin
• Javan Carson, violin
• Jennifer Arnold, cello