Tributes

Today, I want to talk about musical artists that have passed away during this last year. There is an outpouring of love and appreciation from fans each time an artist passes. I don’t object to this fan response, but I wonder why they don’t express this affection while that artist is still alive. It seems to me that we as an audience have the “out of sight, out mind” mentality. If a musician from a band we like just keeps on doing what they are doing and keeps a low profile we forget about them, at least in the forefront of our mind. When a tragedy happens such as death, cancer or a fatal accident we are blindsided by this news. Look, it’s not the artist’s duty to keep us up to date on their personal lives. I think that as fans we need to start celebrating them while they’re still around. It would be a great idea to designate days, for example, their birthdays to celebrate these artists. The point I’m trying to make is we should be celebrating these artists now instead of later.

This brings us to this year, 2016. It has been a year of great loss in the music world. The loss of Lemmy at the very end of 2015 bled into early 2016 as fans around the world mourned. Of course we are not to forget icons like David Bowie, Glenn Frey and Prince or lesser known artists such as Dio and Last In Line bassist Jimmy Bain and former Megadeth drummer Nick Menza. No matter what your musical preference is you cannot deny their influence. Music is timeless and it can last forever if you support it and pass it on so that the next generation of music fans can give it a listen.

For a moment, I would like to draw attention to a few tributes that other musicians and fans have done recently and in the past. A few years ago there was a tribute to the legendary Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath at Bass Player Live!, which was done while he is (at the time of this post) still alive. From the way it was presented, I thought that the bassist had died. It was upsetting to fans thinking that he had passed away and later on during the tribute appeared on stage very much alive. More recently, there was the Ronnie James Dio hologram that was shown at the Wacken Open Air Festival in Germany. In this case I found it in good taste, but it could never be a substitute for the real thing.

Another tribute was to Lemmy from Motörhead as a bronzestatue of him was put into his favorite hangout, the Rainbow Bar & Grill in LA. I find it very touching because now those who visit the establishment may enter it and gaze upon the statue and then either a person of knowledge of the man may enlighten the customers or they may look up the details of this artist themselves. Either way they’ll be learning about a legend.

For these tributes it a great opportunity for the masses that have not heard of these people to learn about and explore their legacy. I just wish that they would have tributes and praise them when it isn’t posthumous.