Freeeeee Biiiiirrrrrd!

By Stewart Oksenhorn

Courtesy Belly Up Aspen

For a town that fancies itself forward-thinking, Aspen sure embraces the opportunity to bask in the sounds of decades past. How else to explain the explosion of tribute bands beating a path from the ‘70s directly to the doorstep of Belly Up, and the fans lining up to join them in choruses of “Sweet Caroline,” “Whole Lotta Love” and “Honky Tonk Woman?” Bands paying tribute to Neil Diamond (Super Diamond) and the Grateful Dead (Dark Star Orchestra, which replicates actual Dead shows, song-for-song) have been drawing locals for years, but they have been joined by acts devoted to the repertoire of Michael Jackson (Who’s Bad), Guns ‘N Roses (Appetite for Destruction), AC/DC (the all-female Hell’s Belles) and Led Zeppelin (the also all-female Lez Zeppelin, which recently played a two-night stand at Belly Up), among many others. But maybe it’s unfair to single out Aspen for falling to such cheap thrills: Isn’t getting loaded, pretending it’s 1973 and shrieking the words to “L.A. Woman” a universal desire?

This article appears in the Midsummer 2008 issue of Aspen Sojourner

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