Tribute show - it's Sublime

TRIBUTE: Wairarapa College band Back To The Remedy will join the bill for a tribute show to Sublime at King Street Live in Masterton tonight. PHOTO/FILE

A hat trick of Masterton acts - The Usual Suspects, Skaper, and Back To The Remedy - will tonight stage a tribute show to the summertime sounds of American ska-punk-reggae band, Sublime.

Organiser Elton Halford, who plays bass with Skaper and lead guitar and vocals with cover band The Usual Suspects, said the King Street Live tribute show to Sublime was sparked after he noticed audiences of his cover band "getting up when we played Sublime".

"We were only playing two or three songs but there was such a great crowd response, we started dropping more and more in. They haven't been around for 18 years but people still love them, so we decided to go the whole way."

Halford said rock-reggae band Skaper, who have twice made the finals of the Wellington regional Battle of the Bands, fit like hand in glove on the tribute bill.

Skaper had played a King Street Live debut last year and tonight welcome the return to the stage of guitarist Michael McDonald, he said.

Wairarapa College band Back To The Remedy was formed at the Masterton school several years ago among friends Zac Emerson, Hayden Warren, Jake Schdroski, and Jessie Brown.

The pop-rock band have three times won the Wairarapa regional Smokefreerockquest contest, taking silver last year, and opened for international Kiwi heavyweights The Datsuns.

The teenagers also last year released a debut EP recorded at Stone Feather Studios in Featherston.

The tribute bill will include a range of Sublime songs. Door sales for the Sublime's Greatest Hits Show at King Street Live are available at $10 each.