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I've never cared much about April Fools' Day. I don't like pranks to begin with, and nowadays every friggin' day is another All Fools' Day edition any way you look.
So let's celebrate an enjoyable joke that we can all be in on. Normally, Virtual Ticket Stub Gallery looks back on performers I've seen in live performance, and it manifests on this blog as an all-time list (which I hope will continue to have more great acts to add in the future) and as a series of individual reminiscences (like seeing KISS, Elvis Costello and the Attractions, the Ramones with the Runaways and the Flashcubes, my first Flashcubes show, the Kinks, David Johansen, Peter Tork, the Bangles, Tommy James, the Monkees, Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney, and a fabricated memory of seeing the Beatles reunited in 1976).
Today's Virtual Ticket Stub Gallery does not include any act I've ever witnessed in live performance. In fact, most of these are acts that no one has ever seen in live performance. Most, in fact, are fictional, taken from movies, TV, comic books, et al. I've even included a few acts I created for my own works.
The few that did exist in the real world have asterisks on their in-concert résumé: The Dirty Mac (John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, and Mitch Mitchell) were a one-off that only performed once as part of the 1968 taping for The Rolling Stones' Rock And Roll Circus. Paul McCartney and the Broad Street Bounders is a name I concocted for a band Macca assembled for his film Give My Regards To Broad Street, with Dave Edmunds, Chris Spedding, John Paul Jones, and Ringo Starr. Gilda Radner's Patti Smith-inspired character Candy Slice appeared in SNL skits and as part of Radner's live act, but never in any other setting. The Barbusters (which were Joan Jett and her Light Of Day castmates Michael J. Fox and Michael McKean) played a live show that Jett organized to expose the made-for-the-movies band to the experience of rockin' a nightclub, but I'm countin' 'em here because I feel like countin' 'em.
It was a coin toss whether or not to include the Redcoats and/or Nigel and Patrick, the British Invasion duos played by Chad and Jeremy (basically playing themselves) on The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Patty Duke Show respectively, as well as the Group (played by Earth, Wind and Fire in the film That's The Way Of The World) and Prince's Purple Rain doppelganger the Kid. I did disqualify the Beau Brummelstones.
(And before you ask: Spinal Tap and the Rutles aren't here because they have done live shows, not allowing a little technicality like, y'know, not really existing to interfere with their pursuit of the rock and the roll. That's the spirit! The same thing goes for Otis Day and the Knights, and I think it may also be true of the Commitments and even Josie and the Pussycats.)
For the fake acts, I tried to limit myself to one act per resource; otherwise, I could've gone deeper into more imaginary performers concocted for The Monkees, Batman, That Thing You Do!, The Rutles, SNL, The Flintstones, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Gilligan's Island, and more. Shared universes were fair game, though, allowing acts from both Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley, from different DC Comics titles, and from different Marvel Comics titles.
Other than links to the stuff I made up myself, I'm not going to provide annotations here. If you're curious about where I discovered one or another of these fictional tunesters that I've appropriated, feel free to contact me.
And now: 1-2-3-FOOL!!
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My mother and grandmother took me to a live "concert" performance by the Banana Splits somewhere in Michigan circa 1970 - '71.
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