WASHINGTON — Ask a music fan to define the British Invasion and they’ll most likely refer to the mid-1960s explosion of groups such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Animals and more. But a show this weekend in Silver Spring will pay tribute to the bands that came into prominence a bit later, and stretched the music even more.
The D.C.-based music production company Bandhouse Gigs is putting on “A Tribute to the British Invasion: The Second Wave 1967-73” Saturday night at the Fillmore Silver Spring.
Concert organizer Ronnie Newmyer said that the show would consist of a tribute to 15 to 20 artists of the era, including Led Zeppelin, Cream, Traffic, Jethro Tull and Blind Faith, performed by “50 of the D.C. area’s greatest singers and musicians … in different combinations,” along with a full horn section and string section.
Newmyer said Bandhouse paid tribute to the first wave of the British Invasion, consisting mostly of “the two-guitars, bass and drums” lineup typified by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Animals and more, at Strathmore in 2010. But to him, the later period contained a lot more experimentation.
“A lot wilder” is how Newmyer described it — “it was kind of the birth of a lot of subgenres” such as glam rock, blues rock and psychedelia. “So it was a much wider palette that bands were drawing from.”
He added that the show would also pay tribute to artists such as Cat Stevens, Donovan and Dusty Springfield. “It wasn’t just the rock groups, but some other edges of the music that we’ll be covering as well.”
Newmyer singled out Donovan as “an interesting case” — someone who went from “the British Bob Dylan” to incorporating “an early proponent of what we now think of as world music. He worked a lot of exotic rhythms into his songs … he did some really neat stuff.”
In all, he said, the period covered by the show included “a real wide variety of styles, from real hard rock to very, very progressive and classical-rock-oriented themes in some of the groups. It was a real exciting time.”
WTOP’s John Aaron contributed to this report.
