Even the fact I still use the word “fancied” shows I am the target market.
But lately, I’ve noticed something. Sometimes the band on the poster is more Band-Aid than band.
One original member, held together with the aid of a few session musicians to cover and protect the band from the cuts of time.
There might be one original member. Perhaps two.
The singer might be different, the drummer has changed due to arthritis and the bass player might actually be from the original band.
But (sorry to all the bass players out there) unless you’re Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth, most of us are going to have to google your name anyway.
Welcome to the strange and increasingly common world of what I call the “Timu band”.
Yes, that’s Timu with an I instead of an E, for legal reasons.
So, what exactly is a Timu band?
It looks like the band you remember; the name on the packet is remarkably similar and all the songs are there.
But when it arrives, you realise you’re basically getting a very expensive karaoke night.
Now, this is not a new problem.
Bands have been replacing members since someone first turned to the drummer and said: “Look, creatively, we just feel like we’re heading in different directions.”
Which usually means someone slept with someone they shouldn’t have.
The Rolling Stones have changed members.
Fleetwood Mac practically made changing members part of their business model.
Deep Purple have had enough people through to field a rugby team, including reserves and possibly a couple of waterboys.
People leave bands. They fall out. They want to do other things. Sometimes, sadly, they die. And of course, the music deserves to keep being played.
But surely there comes a point where there are so few original ingredients left that what you have is no longer the original product.
And here’s the thing for me: music isn’t just notes and lyrics.
A band are about chemistry. They are personalities, voices, arguments, friendships, things that happened on tour that legally must stay on tour and a group of people who somehow came together at one particular moment and created something great.
That combination becomes part of the art.
Imagine going to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa. You buy your ticket, queue for an hour and slowly shuffle towards that famous frame, only to discover Leonardo’s original is currently unavailable.
But don’t worry. They’ve got a very good colour photocopy.
Same smile, same frame, same general dimensions, but underneath is a little sign saying “Mona Lisa featuring Canon ImageFORCE C3150”.
You would probably feel slightly short-changed, even if the photocopy was excellent, because you didn’t come to see a picture of the Mona Lisa. You came to see the Mona Lisa.
And I wonder if, in our increasingly lucrative obsession with nostalgia, we are starting to do something similar with music.
Are we slowly photocopying the Mona Lisa and then charging people to see it?
Because there are bands touring the world that you need to spend 20 minutes on Wikipedia working out whether anyone currently on stage was actually in the band when the song you came to hear was recorded.
At some point, surely, it becomes less of a band and more of a franchise.
Guns N’ Some Roses.
And there is a very good reason this keeps happening.
Nostalgia is big business. The opening bars of a song can transport you faster than any DeLorean, not back to the future, but back to you in the 1990s.
Suddenly you’re 17 again, your knees work, your mortgage doesn’t exist and your hair is still where you left it.
You’re driving around in a car worth $1800 with a $3000 stereo and a removable faceplate you carried around like it was a pair of sunglasses and petrol is cheap enough that you can drive aimlessly for three hours without discussing the decision with your bank.
But perhaps this musical nostalgia needs some rules.
After all, we have rules about what can go on the label of the food we buy.
You can’t fill a carton with vaguely orange-flavoured water, put a picture of an orange on the front and call it orange juice.
So maybe bands need the same sort of consumer protection.
There should be a minimum percentage of the actual band required before you’re allowed to use the name.
Over 50% original members and you’re fine; below 50% and there needs to be an asterisk.
Below 25% and the word “experience” must be added.
Below 10% and you are legally required to call yourself a tribute act.
And if nobody on stage actually appeared on the original record, you have to perform behind a curtain.
Of course, none of these rules would stop people going.
Nostalgia is a powerful drug and these festivals prove we’re more than happy to line up for our next fix of The Cure.
The band might not be quite the band we remember, but when those opening chords kick in, for a few minutes at least, none of that seems to matter.
Maybe keeping the music alive matters more than keeping the exact original line-up alive.
Maybe hearing those songs belted out across a field on a summer night is enough.
But as another convoy of Timu bands rolls into our beach towns this summer, I can’t help wondering what exactly we’re preserving.
Are we keeping great music alive, or are we making a copy of a copy of a copy until all that’s left of the original band is the name written on the cassette?
So just maybe, it’s time to take some of that hard-earned money and support a new band.
The music might be different, but the mosh pit will still be there.
Or, if your moshing days are behind you, you can stand safely to the side with a G&T, complain that you can’t hear the lyrics and buy the T-shirt on the way out.
Who knows? In 30 years’ time, you might pay a small fortune to see one of their original members too.