Last Week Live - Several Species

Tribute bands, especially tribute bands that cover amazingly influential music like Pink Floyd, have a stigma against them.

They're second class acts, B-rated, short-lived copies of something that really is inspiring and powerful.

Several Species proves that stigma right and wrong in the very same three-hour show.

Here's a quick breakdown. Anyone playing an instrument, including the keyboard, sax and various other accouterments, needed for Floyd did spectacularly.

Anyone singing was amateur. The lighting display was phenomenal. Sound was horrid.

Overall, Several Species had some mountainous highs and some abysmal lows, making for a performance that, while not life-changing, was definitely worth seeing.

It's hard to speak about the music since none of it was theirs, but that never stopped their guitarist, bassist or any other instrumentalist from bringing out the best in Floyd's work.

Every solo was tight, technical and soulful, if a little sterile compared to the rest of the group. Lead guitarist Chris Sholtes was far better at his intricate, amazing solos than keeping a simple rhythm, as demonstrated when his sloppy timing killed the opening acoustics in "Wish You Were Here."

The two bandmates that were most powerful and consistent, though, were bassist Bob Bartram and saxophonist Chris Charnigo.

Bartram brought a steady, strong foundation to every song while Charnigo's few appearances infused a brighter, faster soul into the few songs that called for him.

They both soloed extensively in the classic "Money," which ended up being the standout number of the show.

Vocals, however, were far less impressive.

Lead singer Marc Davis had energy, but his technical skills were distractingly lacking. Intonation on any prolonged note was guaranteed to vary.

In the end, I was struck by the idea that he was "feeling it" in the same way someone on drugs is feeling it, which was strange and off-putting.

He had a very bad habit of leaving the stage whenever someone began to solo, which wasn't the worst decision, because, when he didn't leave, he was jumping around and calling more attention to himself than the masterful work of his bandmates.

The encore did strike me as a much different experience, where he truly loved the audience, his music and his work, but if you're going to save that for the encore, well, what's the point of having it at all?

Hollie Brogunier, a backup vocalist, took the stage to sing Clare Torry's "Great Gig in the Sky," which was a let down.

She was powerful, but took incredible breaths that segmented her performance and ultimately robbed the song of its melody. She also improvised the entire piece, which would've been a passable decision if the improvisation had been better.

Lights were gorgeous. The first set, the album Wish You Were Here, began with absolutely beautiful lighting, making "Shine On" one of the best songs of the night.

It became repetitive and unfulfilling until Dark Side of the Moon, the third set, really highlighted the power of their design and display. Each song had nuanced lighting, never overtaking the music, but always supporting it.

Lasers were involved, but proved particularly unspectacular, as they tended towards the same, distracting effect with little difference. They never moved or grew, instead sticking to their angles fairly suffocatingly.

The other lights seemed much stronger, and it was primarily their use that uplifted Dark Side, rather than distracting the audience. Sound was just the opposite, actually destroying the second set, Animals.

13 different iterations of nails-on-chalkboard feedback ripped that album apart.

It threw off the musicians, the audience and the entire atmosphere. Setting up sound for an outdoor pavilion like Pier Six must not be easy, and the specific nature of it would definitely trump most amateur designers; however, even that isn't an excuse for the rookie mistakes being made.

Mixing was particularly distracting, with about half of all entrances being missed by a second or two. For music with as many moving parts and timing based strengths, that was a damning aspect of the sound engineers.

Compared to every other problem, sound design seemed minor .

The encore was far too loud, especially when it was defined by the audience singing along with the best known tracks from The Wall.

The whole night was one exercise in mixing someone louder for a solo, then bringing everyone up to their level. By the finale, the audience was practically covering their ears at the cacophony.

In the end, the stigma of tribute bands is thrown off by Several Species' performance. They brought new life to music that will never be played live by its creators again, both redefining and enlightening our experiences with those classics. They're not perfect — they never will be — but a good performance is still a good performance.

These are tickets worth buying, this is an act worth seeing and, if they can get over their amateur hang-ups, these guys will be bringing Pink Floyd's greatest innovations into the 21st century.