It’s eight o’clock on a Saturday night at McGregor’s in Elmhurst and already the parking lot is packed. Inside, Moe’s Dream Police are running through a sound check, trying to nail down a Bryan Adams tune that didn’t go over the night before. They go through it several times, pulling it apart in different spots, then move on to more familiar material.
After the sound check the boys go their separate ways for a while. Pat D. Marco and Moe hop into Pat’s red Camaro and run over to Denny’s, where talk quickly turns to the hazards of the tribute trail.
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There is little solidarity among tribute bands, evidently. Moe and Pat remember a Black Sabbath tribute band opening for them one night–“Jagoffs,” Moe recalls. “They were pricks. They were pricks.”
“You should have been there the night we played with Animation, the Rush tribute,” says Moe. “I’ve had this rivalry going on ever since grade school with this guy [an Animation member]. We played too long. The bass player’s going, ‘I’m sick of those fuckers, I’m sick of Moe.’ He’s up onstage! He’s saying, ‘Come on up here you motherfucker’ to me! He’s going ‘Fuck you south side. Fuck you Pat Flaherty.’
The waitress comes and, overhearing the discussion, asks what kind of music the band plays.
“We used to end our set with ‘Saturday Night’ by the Bay City Rollers,” says Moe. “The place would go nuts because they knew the words, they knew the song.
“I’m an asshole sometimes, but not all the time,” Moe laughs.
