Every year around this time in Olympia you can count on a couple of things. Students at The Evergreen State College are blowing off seminars to smoke weed in the woods, and since it’s nearly Halloween it must be time for the Olympia Film Society’s “Night of the Living Tribute Bands.”

If you’re not from Olympia, or — by chance — have never heard of Night of the Living Tribute Bands, let me explain.

For seven years in a row now, musicians and closet performance artists have gathered at the Capitol Theater on or near Halloween to pay homage to some of the greatest bands of all time and take on the musical personas they’ve always dreamed of. The idea is simple: musicians so inclined gather their friends and choose a band to pay tribute to, pick their character, practice the licks and the moves, and on the big night strut their stuff for the delight of a packed house of costumed revelers. It’s nowhere near reality, but that’s what makes it so much damn fun.

It’s Night of the Living Tribute Bands in all its glory. If you haven’t the foggiest notion what I’m talking about, you should find out this year, on Halloween, Friday, Oct. 31, when Night of the Living Tribute Bands once again takes over the Capitol Theater.

“We’ve been carrying on this seven-year tradition, hosting NOLTB. It was created by several members of Oly’s music scene as a fund-raiser for the Olympia Film Society and a way to get local musicians involved in the theater,” says Audrey Henley, who as theater manager and live events programmer for the Capitol Theater helps organize Night of the Living Tribute Bands. “The premise behind Night of the Living Tribute Bands is that local musicians get together and rehearse like mad for a couple of months (some have been rehearsing for a year!!) and get together for one night and ‘raise the band from the dead.’ Then it’s over. I’m always in awe of the musicians who participate. They have some serious dedication to performing live music.”

According to Henley, the crowd at this year’s Night of the Living Tribute Bands can expect replica versions of Blue Oyster Cult, The Cars, The Doors, The Pretenders, Wings, X, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

“We put a call out in the Olympia Film Society program guide, e-mail local bands, and make postings on local blogs, then we wait for the bravest of the brave to step forward and put in their request,” says Henley of the process of generating the Night of the Living Tribute Bands lineup.

The evening’s festivities — for the first time this year — will also include the blood curdling fun of host Necro Phylis, who’s a character straight out of the deranged imagination of Olympia resident and long time Night of the Living Tribute Band fan Sydney Hann. Her plans for being the afterlife hostess with the mostess include plenty of zombies and blood — not to mention the chance to live out fantasies that any other day of the year would be inappropriate.

“Halloween is my day,” explains Hann of her fascination with the gruesome. “I have a lot of unfulfilled fantasies about killing people, so I get to work some of that out at the show. I’ve got a lot of darkness inside, I guess.”

I guess.

This year’s edition of an Olympia classic, Night of the Living Tribute Bands, will go down Friday, Halloween, at the Capitol Theater in Olympia.

If you’ve been living under a rock it’s time to find out what everyone’s talking about.  If you’ve already heard, chances are I’ll see you at the show.

[Capitol Theater, 8:30 p.m., $5-$7, 206 5th Ave., SE, Olympia, 360.754.5378 ]