Last week I went to the big Super Mondo Corporation trade show event. Kind of big deal only in that it after years of hearing stories about what these things are like I finally got to go to one. I know, a boy can dream, can't he.

Anyways, the big event of the evening was a performance by noted 80's has-beens Tears For Fears. And yeah, I do so love the '80's. Now, first of all, I know the kids love the 80's music, but does their love of 80's music make it such that Tears for Fears is seen as a great party band? Cause you're throwing a big party with maybe a thousand people and listening to "Shout" and "Mad World" doesn't sound like something that'll make everyone boogie down. Oh yeah, and remember how back in the '80's or 90's when we saw bands like Starship and Foghat and the Beach Boys play and we'd all think "why don't they just give it up?" Why is it okay to say that about Foghat but not Tears for Fears?

Anyhoo, the crowd loved them. The drunks in the front of my friend and I were even swinging arm-in-arm through the concert, with hot drunk girl getting on some guys shoulders to rock out to "Shout." And as I'm watching this, I'm thinking to myself just how much alcohol it would take to be in a band and find yourself playing some corporate gig. Isn't corporate gig a step up from a Puppet Show (and side note- when I made similar side crack to Marketing Manager and AE at Christmas Party, it drew a blank response. What do you do if nobody gets a fairly obvious Spinal Tap reference?)? And not only would I be drunk, I'd probably be hitting the wah-wah pedal and distortion box every ten or fifteen seconds just to lay down some sort of subervsive element to it. Because, after all, nothing says rock n' roll like heading the crowd in a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday to the companies Senior V.P. They even said those dread words "and now, for the first single from our new album" without any hint of irony. How could you not be drunk when you say those words?

The thing about Tears For Fears too was that they were obviously very comfortable in their early 40's, pre-Middle Age years. The main guys both looked like they like nothing better to do than drink tea and watch the telly, not try and rock out the crowd. Which makes it all the more disconcerting when they tried to play all their big, "we're English and we're brooding and depressed" songs that made up most of their hits. The song might be saying "Everybody Wants to Rule The World," but their demeanor was more like "Everybody Wants To Tend the Garden and Diversify the Portfolio."

There was also a U2 cover band that played that night. They were pretty good, but, again, a little disconcerting. They did a pretty good job of sounding like U2 (the lead singer even spoke with a fake Irish accent during songs) but they looked nothing like them. The lead singer was dressed in Achtung-Baby era the Fly black, but he had curly hair with a receding hairline, making him look more like the lead singer of the Scorpions than Bono. And the guitar player, who dressed exactly like the Edge in ski cap and numbered "Beautiful Day" era t-shirt, was kind of doughy looking. The thing about seeing a U2 cover band, though, is that while U2 may be all sorts of good, they don’t lend themselves especially well to the whole cover band idea. Cover bands, after all, work when there's a healthy dollop of irony involved. You can't do U2 ironically, even ironic U2. It's hard to sound earnest and sincere when you're playing at earnest and sincere. Being heartfelt at being heartfelt isn't the same thing.

Cover bands always make me think about the weirdness of it all from an identity stand point. Do the guys on stage see themselves as themselves or as Bono and the Edge? Do they think of themselves that way off the stage too? And I'm sure they have groupies because everyone with a guitar who gets on stage has groupies (well, except for me back in college, but that's another story). Are the girls who get with them getting with them or with the people they're supposed to be? Like, is Cover Band Bono Groupie really wanting to hit it with Sigmund or Horst or whatever his name was or do they really think they're hitting it with Bono? And when they're getting it on, how many times has the girl screamed out Bono's name instead of his?