Grateful Dead tribute CUBENSIS is “seeing purple” over being bumped by Prince’s secret shows at W. Hollywood House of Blues. The veteran Los Angeles Grateful Dead Tribute band had been booked with a Bob Dylan tribute, Highway 61 Revisited, for a “Dylan’s 70th Birthday Party” on May 25 but was told just the night before that their scheduled show was postponed by Live Nation in favor of a trio of intimate performances by Prince.
“We understand completely why the House of Blues would offer its club to the Purple One, ” said Cubensis guitarist Craig Marshall, “but our concern involves why we heard about it so late, and the monumental task of getting word to our fans at the last minute that our show has been postponed.”
Cubensis was on stage at the Golden Sails Hotel in Long Beach Tuesday night when they received an urgent call from Joel Gilbert, “Bob Dylan” of noted Dylan tribute Highway 61 Revisited, who was also on the bill with Cubensis for the canceled show.
“Joel stated the Live Nation folks had just informed him of the cancellation, but they could not reveal what or who might have preempted us, ” said Marshall. “We all found out the next morning that it was to be three intimate shows with Prince, with ticket prices ranging from $220 to $500. That’s a lot of money, but we have not yet been offered any compensation for our inconvenience other than a resceduled date to July 6. We’d at least appreciate tickets to the Prince show!”
The popular Dead tribute has appeared at the House of Blues over 75 times in the last 10 years, and typically distributes free tickets for these shows via their website and over 3000 printed tickets passed out at their other concerts around town. “We’re concerned about a large number of people showing up at the club who may not have heard of the postponement,” worries Marshall.
Marshall was also surprised to learn that Live Nation put out a press release on May 23 teasing information about a special evening with Prince on Wednesday night, but without revealing any location information. “This tells me that they knew well in advance about the Prince appearance,” said Marshall, “because you can’t just put together an event like that overnight. In fact, tickets went on sale at noon on the 24th. We have a great relationship with the House of Blues organization. I just don’t understand why we were the last to know.”
Cubensis appears at the Orange County Fair on August 4 and at the Belasco Theatre in downtown Los Angeles on August 7, and every Tuesday at the Golden Sails Hotel in Long Beach.
