What’s in a name, Shakespeare asked. I’m pondering that in advance of a concert in Ottawa tonight. It was the names that attracted me.

Three seventies powerhouses, two with sixties roots. Jefferson Starship, Kansas and Deep Purple are sharing the stage. I have seen these bands before. But not there versions.

There is one original member left in Starship from its heyday – and it isn’t Grace Slick or Paul Kantner. Yes, the other members have been part of the band for twenty years or more, but they didn’t play on the hits the audience is coming to see.

I last saw Kansas in concert around 1975, shortly after the release of their second album. There are only two members left from that time, the drummer and guitarist. Except one of them isn’t touring anymore and the other is only touring part time.

It is quite possible there will be no-one on that stage that I have seen before. Does it matter, given that the guys who write the hits aren’t in the band anymore? Is it Kansas when no member was there at the beginning?

At least three of the five members of Deep Purple scheduled to perform tonight have been with the group since the sixties. A lot of musicians have been part of Purple over the years, and there are perhaps more big names to choose from when tehy decide to tour.

The struggle for me is, when does a band lose its identity, the right to call itself by the name that made it famous? Do rock bands have some sort of DNA that gives what is essentially a cover band the right to call itself by a storied name, even if there are no members left from its heyday?

(And it just isn’t rock and roll that makes me ask this question. Glenn Miller died in 1944, but the Glenn Miller Orchestra is still touring. I think it is safe to say none of those touring today ever met Glenn Miller.)

I expect tonight’s show to be a good one. The replacement musicians will be competent. Perhaps they will be musically better than those they are replacing.

But will something be missing? Does a rock band have a soul?

Starship will reach back into their history for the hits, including from when they were the Jefferson Airplane. I’m not sure how I feel about “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love” being sung by someone other thank Grace Slick. It just won’t be the same.

That holds true for “Dust In the Wind,” “Carry On My Wayward Son” and “Hold On,” when their author, Kerry Livgren, isn’t on the keys and guitar. Vocalist Steve Walsh quit the band in the eighties because he didn’t like how Livgren’s spiritual journey had progressed from eastern mysticism to Christianity. he decided he couldn’t sing a message he didn’t believe. U doubt tonight’s singer has that conflict – these are just songs that are part of the repertoire.

Maybe it doesn’t matter. I’m old, I saw these bands back when rock was young (or in Deep Purple’s case when it was middle aged). To a new generation of fans maybe it doesn’t matter.

But it isn’t the real thing. I’m old enough to know that much.

Somehow though I expect as the iconic guitar riffs blast from the speakers I will forget the difference.