A good friend of mine is in a Rolling Stones tribute band called The Midnight Ramblers.  I hadn't had a chance to see them perform before, so she invited me out to a show they were playing last night at the House of Blues in San Diego.  In fact, it was a collection of tribute bands, so it sounded like fun.  Plus, she gave me 4 free tickets, so what the heck.  :-)

I got there a little late, but in time to see most of the second band perform.  They were called the Sun Kings, and were a Cult tribute band, and they were pretty darned good.  I can't find them on the web anyplace, but I'd love to see them again.

Next came the Ramblers, and I was very pleasantly surprised.  Yes, I know someone in the band, but they really are very good.  In fact, between the Sun Kings and the Midnight Ramblers, the crowd went from about 40-50 people to over 150, and everyone was dancing and singing along.  It was a really great time.

Anyway, they wrapped their set, and the MC announced that the next band would be a Duran Duran cover band named Rio.  As a child of the 80's, I was very excited.  If they were half as good as the other two bands, it was going to be a great night!

Well, they weren't.  I am seriously not kidding when I say that they were the WORST BAND I have EVER HEARD play a professional gig.  I mean, c'mon.  Most of Duran Duran is freaking keyboard sequencing, and they couldn't even get any of that right.  On top of that they all sang WAY OUT OF TUNE.  I'm talking not even close.  It really sounded like they were trying to sing the songs in another key, only they couldn't agree on which one. 

And by the time they were into their third song, they had practically cleared out the joint.  If there were 40 people there at the end, I would be completely amazed.  It was so bad that I half-joked afterward that I need to spend a day or so listening to nothing but Duran Duran so that I can repair the damage they did to the songs I had to sit through.  I'm not sure I can describe how bad it was.

Sadly, I think the band knows how much they suck too, because if you go to the MySpace link I pasted in above, the don't have a single sample song, which is entirely the point of having a MySpace account for your band.  So sad.