This thread could turn into
The Commitments Part Deux
For me the most perfect name for a band is fairly obviously
The Band although if you add up all the instruments they could play as individuals they should have named themselves
The Orchestras. Collectively they were probably the most talented band of rock/pop/country/fusion/cross-over musicians ever assembled
. Not for nothing did Mr. Zimmerman look to
The Band to support his transition from beatnik-poet / solo folk and protest singer to rock-and-roller. They also managed that most artistically rewarding of all musical initiatives, they restricted American membership to 1.
Pretty good for a country whose most recognisable popular musicians were respectively rumoured to be responsible for pandemics of depression and drinking Canada dry.
Second in the perfect-name stakes has to be The Beatles. Before there was rock 'n roll or pop music there was "beat music" played by "beat groups" of "beatniks" in "beat clubs" and the beat goes on. They started out doing exactly what it says on the tin and then so much more.
For sheer craziness names like
Dave, Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch or
Captain Beefheart (note neither is a "The") or even
The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band trip easily and poetically off the tongue
.
Another "non-The" band with Irish connections were the excruciatingly badly-named
Eire Apparent, yet another Chas Chandler creation that toured with The Animals and The Jimi Hendrix Experience
, their untimely demise allegedly triggered by Henry McCullough's visa deficit.