A few years ago I went to the Black Cat’s Run for Cover event (where a whole bunch of local musicians put together one-night-only cover bands for charity) and thoroughly enjoyed it. So I had wanted to go back ever since. But this past Saturday I was less impressed. It wasn’t bad, but I was tired, annoyed by the Bon Jovi cover band, and left before seeing the last two bands (one a Weezer cover band, the other doing the Bee Gees).

From what I saw, there were two main highlights — the Runaways cover band which was pretty hilarious, as they did “Cherry Bomb” and then, since there were no other Runaways songs to play, a set of some Joan Jett hits preceded by Lita Ford‘s “Kiss Me Deadly.” And I totally LOVE the song “Kiss Me Deadly” so I was jazzed! They also alluded to doing “Close My Eyes Forever” and I think I would have died happy if they’d had an Ozzy-clone come out and do that one, but oh well. “Kiss Me Deadly”! Such a classic! I was also kind of hoping the real Joan Jett would come out and join them at some point, but I liked the faux-Joan Jett too.

The other highlight was a Cure tribute. The Cure seem pretty easy to cover if you can find someone who can approximate Robert Smith’s voice. The dude was good — here’s a clip:

But, sigh, Bon Jovi. I think I would not have minded them much at all, had I not seen a Bon Jovi tribute band just a month ago. That’s it for Bon Jovi tributes for my lifetime, I think. I mean, Bon Jovi were ok, but there are so many better bands in the same genre… the tougher bands like Crüe and Ratt, the heavier bands like GnR, the amazing party-dude/guitar god mashup that was old-school Van Halen. But Bon Jovi? Just a boring party band, but one that takes themselves more seriously than Poison did. If it was up to me I would’ve tried being a Tesla tribute.

I also liked the Guided by Voices tribute though I don’t know GBV very well. Maybe I should delve into it some more. Here’s a clip:

UPDATE 8/6/09: Just stumbled upon a clip from the “Cherrybombz” — very short but I wanted to acknowledge it since I thought they were rad: