‘We're so big we could do a gig on the moon': tribute acts on fame, money and what it takes to make it

The Guardian

17 hours ago

Pink Floyd, Queen, AC/DC and, of course, Elvis play every weekend around Australia, often to sell-out crowds. Sure, they might not be the real thing – but they're close enough.
Tribute acts – the artists who make their living performing covers of well-known musicians – are not new. But in the past few years they've surged in popularity – even while Australia's live music industry has struggled – as audiences embrace nostalgia more than ever before. RSLs and regional towns might be the stomping ground for tribute acts but today the best in the business can charge more than $100 a ticket.
So who are some of the biggest tribute acts in Australia, and what drives them? We meet four to find out.
Bjorn Again, the world's biggest Abba tribute act, have played gigs most artists only ever dream of. They've done Glastonbury three times and graced hallowed venues such as Wembley Stadium and the Sydney Opera House. They perform 300 and 400 times a year, and have toured about 120 countries.
But as co-founder John Tyrell sees it, the truest sign of the group's success is the celebrites they attract.
'Dave Grohl is our biggest fan,' he says. 'Rowan Atkinson has booked us for his parties. JK Rowling's been to a gig. Russell Crowe booked us for his wedding. We've played Money, Money, Money to Bill Gates at a Microsoft function in LA – I could just go on and on.'
To meet the level of demand, Bjorn Again has more than one line-up on staff to play the Swedish superstars and it operates offices in London and Melbourne. Shows sell out quickly. As Tyrell puts it: 'We could do a gig on the moon.'
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But this global success story wasn't born – or, ahem, Bjorn – out of a great love for Abba's music. In 1988, Tyrell and his friend Rod Stephen were playing in bands around Melbourne. But when their bands failed to take off, Stephen had the idea for an Abba cover act: he thought it would be funny and something different from other gigs on the market – and a way to meet all the girls they'd have to audition.
'I said, 'I don't really like Abba,'' Tyrell remembers. 'And he said, 'I don't either, but that's not the point.''
They couldn't have imagined they'd still be doing it more than 35 years later. Tyrell stopped playing in the band 10 years ago and now works behind the scenes, but he still loves the job because 'you just never know who will ring up wanting us for a gig'.
A case in point is their most famous – or infamous – fan: Vladimir Putin, who booked the group for a private show in Moscow in 2009. The gig was booked through their UK office, so Tyrell didn't learn about it until after the fact – when he woke up to 80 missed calls from journalists.
It was a different time in geopolitics then, he says. 'I don't think he had invaded anywhere [yet].' But recent events have somewhat soured that momentous booking: 'Since the Ukraine thing, we've taken it off our website.'
Despite Bjorn Again's lucrative global success, Tyrell says it's enjoyment of the job that keeps him going. 'We are not driven by money,' he says. 'We were just doing it for fun. But it's been insanely successful.'
Kelly O'Brien admits she looks 'nothing like Dolly Parton'. It's true – out of costume, the only trace of the Australian-born, UK-based performer's alter ego is her long acrylic nails. That, and her height – she's exactly five feet, just like the real Dolly.
But for the past 18 years, O'Brien has been doing a bang-up job of looking like Parton when she takes to the stage in The Dolly Show. It hasn't come easy – as Parton once famously said, it takes a lot of money to look this cheap.
When O'Brien first decided to become a Dolly Parton tribute act in 2007, she took out a £10,000 loan to buy 'big prosthetic boobs', wigs, makeup, nails, costumes and custom-made corsets. It takes two hours to doll up, and every show has six costume changes, which, done hastily on stage, are 'like two pigs fighting under a blanket'. Off stage, O'Brien adheres to a strict ketogenic diet to stay as tiny as the real Parton.
The commitment has paid off: O'Brien 'now gets paid extremely well for what I do' and she was recently chosen by the real Dolly Parton to be one of 15 finalists in contention to play the singer in a Broadway show about her life.
O'Brien's road to Dolly began many years ago. A gifted singer, by age 12 she had begun entering country music competitions in her home state of South Australia. It wasn't that she was particularly enamoured with the genre, she just liked the attention and the chance to win easy money. For one competition, she dressed up as Parton 'and everyone lost their minds', which sealed her future. She now plays between 75 and 100 gigs a year.
But her costume wasn't the only thing O'Brien had to master. When she started out, she spent three months studying every video of Parton she could find so she could convincingly imitate the star's mannerisms. And the work is never done.
'She's written more than 3,000 songs – I'm always learning another one,' O'Brien says. 'I've learned to play the guitar with these nails; the banjo, the harmonica, the tambourine. The stories, the anecdotes, the Dolly-isms, the way she moves … I studied her laugh on repeat over and over, just so I have it right. I want people to think when I'm on stage – as they do – that I'm her.'
Her shows attract Dolly diehards of all kinds.
As well as the paycheque, what keeps O'Brien coming back is the feedback she gets from audiences – such as the woman who told her she'd experienced a miscarriage, but listening to her performance of Light of a Clear Blue Morning made her feel, for the first time, that everything would be OK.
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'When the world is so bonkers and you can stand up there for two hours … and everyone leaves feeling so good, that's the most amazing feeling,' O'Brien says. 'It's just the best job in the world.'
The Dolly Show is now touring the UK.
The Australian Bee Gees Show has racked up more than 10,000 gigs since it began. The group performs six shows a week in Las Vegas and has four full line-ups, allowing them to play in different parts of the world at the same time. 'We've franchised, if you like,' says Michael Clift, the man behind this very global operation.
Clift and his bandmates came up with the idea to put a Bee Gees cover act together in 1996 to bring in extra money while they worked on original music. Back then, tribute acts were few and far between – and Bee Gees fans were 'fairly standoffish', unsure if Clift and co were mocking their beloved heroes.
Before the internet, it was a lot harder to research the ins and outs of an act, or even see them perform. Clift would drive to record stores and secondhand shops around Melbourne to rustle together the band's back catalogue.
But he was determined. A great tribute act has to capture the essence of what fans love about an artist, he says – not just the music but the 'finer details' of the group's mannerisms, outfits and speech.
'We went to huge lengths to look like the Bee Gees – prosthetic teeth, wigs, makeup, you name it,' Clift says. 'To me, it was all about getting those details right. If you're watching Kurt Russell playing Elvis, you don't want to be thinking all night [if] it's Kurt Russell you're watching. You need to be able to suspend your disbelief.'
It took a lot of work and time, but 'it definitely paid off', Clift says. They convinced a Vegas casino to give them a residency and 14 years later proudly count themselves as part of what they estimate is the 5% of tribute acts who work full-time.
But despite Clift's success, the most dangerous thing a tribute act can do is get comfortable, he says: 'We've been doing it for nearly 30 years. But a new [act] could pop up tomorrow that's beautifully produced and full of talented people. You don't have any rights, you're playing someone else's music … so if someone else starts doing it better, you have to let it go.'
The Australian Bee Gees Show is touring the US and Australia this year
There are at least seven Fleetwood Mac tribute acts in Australia but Dreams, who ticked off 76 shows last calendar year, is perhaps the busiest.
Behind the operation is Wayne Daniels, a longtime musician who founded the act in 2016. An old friend, who then managed a golf club, needed a show for Sunday afternoons at the venue and asked Daniels to find something to fill the slot. He slapped together a Fleetwood Mac cover show – and enjoyed the experience so much that he decided to keep doing it.
'I knew there were quite a few other Fleetwood Mac cover bands around, but I really wanted to do it for myself because Rumours is in my blood,' he says, referring to one of the band's most successful albums.
Not everyone was convinced. 'People were saying, 'A lot of people are doing [Fleetwood Mac covers shows] – are you sure you want to do that? How popular can it be?' Daniels says, down the line from Redcliffe Entertainment Centre, where his band is getting ready to play to a sold-out crowd of 400. 'And look where we are today.'
Women have been key to the show's success. They love Stevie Nicks and drive ticket sales. That's why it's crucial they have a performer on stage who looks like the real deal. Daniels, who serves as the group's musical director but also steps into the role of Lindsey Buckingham, admits he looks nothing like the real Lindsey. 'But that doesn't matter – I can be the one who doesn't look like him, because I started the band,' he says. 'And in all honesty, when we're performing, all eyes are on the girls.'
Dreams Show now has its own fans, the most devoted of whom have seen the show '10 to 15 times', Daniels says. 'They come again and again and again, and they bring back their shirts for us to sign'. Not Fleetwood Mac shirts – Dreams Show shirts. (The band also sell hats and, because 'we are in Australia', stubby coolers.)
Despite the number of Fleetwood Mac tribute acts out there, Daniels isn't fazed by the competition. 'Good luck to them,' he says. 'Whatever keeps the music alive is a good thing.'
The Dreams Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks Show is playing around Australia for the rest of the year