So early in December, I went to the Half Moon in Putney to see The Smyths play a gig to a packed room.

Now, while I’ll admit to having been a big Smiths fan in the last century, I’ve always been a bit iffy about cover bands, for a whole bunch of reasons.

First up: I don’t have a lot of truck with lookalikes (and before we go any further, can I just state for the permanent record that the word is lookalike not looky-likey. Gah!) or impersonators. In fact, I’d go as far as to say they get on my nerves. They’re always (pardon the pun) a pale imitation of the real thing: when I watch Jon Culshaw or Rory Bremner doing Trevor McDonald or Prince Charles or Tony Blair or whoever, I just see…someone in poor makeup and a wig pretending to be Trevor McDonald or Prince Charles or whoever. I just can’t suspend my disbelief. Sorry.

So any band which is basically just a bunch of impersonators…sorry, but count me out. I’m not interested in the hair, or the clothes, or the platform boots - it’s the music that matters (man).

Secondly: There are a lot of dodgy cover bands out there. I’m led to believe that there’s a world of difference between a cover band and a tribute act, though I’m blowed if I can see the difference - is it that a cover band just plays the music and a tribute band tries to live the dream? Hmm.

In fact, it was on a radio programme (Send In the Clones) about cover acts that I first heard about The Smyths - someone was talking about a festival for tribute acts which takes place every year, featuring all sorts of rum acts. It’s called, appropriately, Glastonbudget (BBC story about it). So, essentially a whole festival of cheap knockoffs. Which brings me to my third.

Thirdly: The names. Dear god, the names. Mis-spellings, mis-pronounciations, puns and much worse. Here are just a few I’ve come across over the years - though I’ve not seen any of them. Believe me, you don’t get to be online this long without eventually being bored and exploring the sinister underbelly of cultural life, you know.

• Dread Zeppelin
• Small Weller
• Alike Cooper
• By Jovi
• Bon Jordi
• Oasish
• Bon Giro
• Ded Hot Chili Peppers
• US4
• AC/D-She
• Crowded Scouse
• Barry Whide
• T-Rextasy
• Red Hot Silli Feckers
• The Curse
• Think Floyd
• The Secret Police
• Rollin’ Stoned
• The Beached Boys
• Bon Jovish
• BC/DC
• Surely Bassey
• Dire Fakes
• The Food Fighters
• Lez Zepplin
• Too Rex
• Deft Leppard
• One Step Behind
• Hi-on Maiden
• Ironically Maiden
• Peat Loaf
• Mandonna
• Fake That
• Mettalicish

(Do you know any others? Links in the comments, please.)

Anyway, nevertheless, casting all doubts aside, and having singularly failed to see Mozza, Rourke, Joyce and Marr do their thing on stage before the great acrimonious split, and having heard glowing things about The Smyths - “The Smiths band of Smiths fans for Smiths fans” - plus spurred by the fact that they were playing just down the road from me in Putney (something that the Smiths never quite managed, worst luck), I assembled the troops (Steph, Dan) and sauntered down.

Well. They were actually pretty good! Wasn’t expecting that at all.

They did all the favourites, from all the eras, and a few that I wasn’t expecting at all - so on top of the likes of Panic, Cemetry Gates and How Soon is Now, we also got Vicar in a Tutu, Reel Around The Fountain and Frankly Mr Shankly. They played for absolutely ages - two sets, each at least forty minutes - and covered every era including solo Morrissey. And although it took a couple of songs for the lead singer to properly channel Morrissey, the band (especially guitars) nailed the riffs, spot on. Most odd.

And as you might expect, every single song was accompanied by a chorus of fans singing along. It was Karaoke for the indie generation. Singalonga Smiths.

Course, I did it, too.

In case of doubt, here’s a couple of (poor quality - the camera, not the band) videos I shot that night:

The main riff to How Soon is Now

The crowd sings along to the encore of There Is A Light…

Probably the weirdest/most interesting aspect of the whole night was observing how the audience - loyal Smyths fans for the most part, all of a certain age and girth - were able to suspend their disbelief, get into the moment, feel and respond as if this really was The Smiths playing in the dingy back room of a SW London pub. They screamed. They waved. They danced. They went wild. And, you know, maybe it was the alcohol, and maybe it was the orgy of feeling, the communal, consensual hallucinatory effect, but in the odd fleeting moment, you could believe that the skinny bloke with the open shirt and the beads, the glasses and the quiff, was actually a smudged echo of Morrissey. The crowd didn’t so much see it as feel it.

But after the second encore, the crowd started chanting for more:

Mo-rri-ssey
Mo-rri-ssey
Mo-rri-ssey

And he came back on, streaming with sweat, clasping the mic in one hand and waving at the crowds with the other. It was a surreal moment. I felt like calling out “It’s not Morrissey! His name is Graham!”

But I didn’t want to spoil the moment, break the hopeful spell of people who will never see their favourite band perform live, together again.

And you know what? In that moment, in the fug of a dimmed room, high on cider and dancing-induced adrenaline, neither did I.

—–
(NB: I’ve been meaning to write about this for ages, and notes on the experience have dwelt unloved and unexpanded in my Wordpress drafts for too long. With that in mind, and in the knowledge that there’s currently not much else I can write about without breaking an NDA or showing too much of what’s currently in my hand (or, indeed, my head), and that there’s only so long I can let del.icio.us do my blogging for me on a nightly basis…)