This was a huge honour for the Linsmore Tavern (1298 Danforth Ave) being recognized by BlogTo for our Tribute nights! We have booked so many incredible Tribute Bands over the years. Pretty much you can name any big rock band over the last 60 years and we have probably had a Tribute to that band perform at our place.
What led us to putting on so many Tribute shows over the years, was because of the amazing experience we had with the very first Tribute band that we book almost 10 years ago. The Linsmore Tavern just started experimenting with booking the odd show back in 2011 and one of our good regulars John Masters suggested that we look into a Neil Young Tribute band called The Neil Young’uns! John just recently saw them at the Cadillac Lounge and was raving about how good they were. So we ended up calling the band and they said that they were open to playing our place (looking back now we realize how fortunate that this amazing band took a chance on playing our place which at the time was not established at all as a music venue).
We ended up booking the show and this was the first time we decided to sell tickets for a concert at the Linsmore, so we were pretty nervous. We were so fortunate that The Neil Young’uns were complete pros, sending over a professional poster well in advance and they ended promoting the show to their network (at that time we did not have much of a social media presence or a following for live music, so this was much appreciated). People from all over the GTA were coming by our bar to buy advance tickets for this show. This was unimaginable to us at the time, as prior to this we really struggled to get new customers into the Linsmore. We end up selling out this show in advance which was the best feeling in the world for us and a first!
There was so much anticipation in the air for The Neil Young’uns first show at the Linsmore Tavern. We heard that this band was good, but we had no idea how amazing they actually were until we saw them perform that night! It was note for note perfection and if you closed your eyes you thought that you were listening to Neil Young himself, that’s how good they were! It was such a magical, unforgettable evening with a full house rockin’ out late into the evening to The Neil Young’uns! For the majority of the customers that were in the bar that night, that was the first time at the Linsmore and it was their introduction to our place. Everyone went home happy that night and after such a magical night we immediately booked The Neil Young’uns back for another show.
We are so grateful and lucky that we booked such a great, professional band like The Neil Young’uns who really cared about helping us fill the room and putting on a world-class performance for everyone in attendance. At that time, it was a big risk for the Linsmore to book a band like The Neil Young’uns and who knows what would have happened if this night did not work out. The success of this night and seeing all of the new faces in our place really opened our eyes to what could be possible with live music. From this great experience, we have gone on to book hundreds of world-class Tributes from 2011 to the start of the pandemic. The Neil Young’uns have gone on to perform28 Sold-Out memorable shows in a row at the Linsmore Tavern from 2011 to 2020. We have a feeling that pretty soon we can get back to having these amazing Tribute nights again at the Linsmore Tavern! It is honestly one of the best feelings when you can host an evening where it’s a full house, with incredible music and everyone goes home happy. We miss this so much and we hope we can get back to doing this soon!
