Forget the real thing, tribute bands are great! | Taranaki News | Local News in Taranaki

THE UK is famous for many things, but in this case I’m talking music festivals.
You know the ones, Glastonbury, The Green Man etc. You turn up to see your favourite bands, sure that whatever happens the spirit of Woodstock lives on in the form of peace and love, dude!
Suspicious Cigarettes
Of course, the trouble is the event rarely turns out to be what you expect. You see in Scotland, every June you’ll find ‘T in the Park’. It’s the biggest festival north of the border and one particular summer, a few mates and I decided that as the insightful and utterly brilliant Paul Weller of ‘The Jam’ fame was due to play, we’d roll up with our beer and suspicious cigarettes to relive the happening sixties, man!
Cess Pits
We found however, to our blurry eyed shock, that the fields populated entirely by kindred spirits and link minds, had been replaced by hoards of spotty teenagers pissed out of their heads, queues for the lavs (I call them lavs, cess-pits would be more accurate) a mile long and of course, as it’s Scotland and the UK, security guards searching for knives and removing anything else from the masses that could possibly constitute any fun!. So, bang went the beer and silly ciggies.
60 Billion People
This having spoilt the ‘karma’ dude, we trotted off at the time scheduled by ‘the man’ happily looking forward to Mr Weller and his Brit-rock classics. Unfortunately what with the event being attended by some 60 billion people, we’d have been closer to the stage were we orbiting the sun and as a result of all the teenagers milling around looking depressed, the ground was a horrible mass of sticky mud, urine and spilt smuggled in RTDs. Needless to say we couldn’t hear the music and spent most of the time moaning and debating how many beers at the pub our entrance ticket could have bought.
Oasis
Some time after this debacle we all attended another, much smaller event at a local pub, where a band that performed the music of the fabulous ‘Oasis’ were playing. Calling themselves ‘No-way-Sis’, the Oasis ‘tribute’ band were brilliant. No mud, no teenagers, no booze ban, no lav queues, all in all a much better and more appealing experience than the nasty, as is now known among friends ‘T in the Parkgate’.
BMW X5
Now this does, crazy I know, lead me to the subject of this months car review, a Mazda ‘Tribute’. You see there are lots of cars that claim an SUV title and many are quite happy to strip you of hundreds of thousands of dollars for the privilege of ownership, the BMW X5 is an example, but it is ‘T in the Park’. You see, yes they’re very good and refined examples of the breed, but once you’ve mortgaged the children to own one you’ll find yourself wondering how many beers you could have bought at the pub by saving yourself a shed load of cash.
Plenty of Grunt
The Mazda is a brilliant budget BMW X5. It’s good looking, with the high stance and the ease of access that is so popular with SUV buyers, it’s got Mazda’s very reliable and proven three litre V6 engine, coupled to a surprisingly smooth auto box and column shift. Internally the cream cloth finish looks great and works well with the toning dashboard. There’s a crackin stereo with plenty of grunt to play all those Wiggles classics and loads of room in the rear for the kids to become irritating, as they surely will.
Ukrainian Smuggler
If you’re in the market for a good sized family car with room to spare, some electronic toys for Dad and good rear load space for all Mum’s clothes shopping, then this truly is the car for you. Forget the BMW X5 and the Porsche Cayenne, even if you can afford one, you’ll soon find yourself regretting losing the children to the Ukrainian smuggler you sold them to and hankering after something significantly cheaper that ticks all the same boxes.
If you have bought the archetypal Remuera tractor, I’m afraid you bought the wrong car and have ended up with ‘T in the Parkgate’. When all along you should have bought the ‘Tribute’, this little Mazda Tribute.