After the announcement of his sad death a few days ago, the music world began mourning for Big Star’s Alex Chilton. Chilton was never one to be anything other than the life and soul of the party though by all accounts and so it really was only a matter of time until the party started to celebrate his life and now it has officially been announced that Chilton’s Big Star band mates have organised a tribute gig.
The tribute gig is to take place at tonight’s South By Southwest Festival (SXSW) in Austin, Texas but it is not expected to be the last gig that is to be dedicated to the memory of Alex Chilton. He was such a major influence and hero to many people, some of whom are now stars in the music industry in their own right. Many will want to pay their respects.
Ken Stringfellow, the current Big Star bassist, confirmed that they were looking to get Cheap Trick and Mike Mills of REM to perform with the remaining members of the band tonight because they were scheduled to appear with Chilton prior to his sudden and tragic death. As of yesterday, Stringfellow was still a little hazy on the details: “There’s already a lot of people stepping forward, interested in augmenting the band and singing some of Alex’s songs. We drew up a shortlist of people we knew were playing at SXSW who might be interested, but I’m not sure exactly who can actually do it yet.” Although no details have still been confirmed, watch this space next week for information as to whether or not this actually happened or will happen in the weeks to come.
If this performance can be found online then it will be worth watching because I am betting that it will be one to remember as they do Alex proud.
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