Jon Bon Jovi is eating fish and chips. Axl Rose is hugging Tina Turner. David Bowie – bald and Scottish – is mooching around, while something seems off with Erasure’s Andy Bell. His bandmate Vince Clarke is head down into his keyboard, belting out electropop, as you may expect, but despite the blond wavy hair, overly tight-fitting patterned T-shirt and slight club singer vibe, Bell seems strange. “This song I actually like,” he says several songs in, as Ship of Fools begins.
It’s Saturday night at Tribfest, which claims to be the biggest tribute band festival in the world, held at Sledmere House in east Yorkshire. It turns out the singer playing Bell was brought in last minute to replace Dave Tyler, who normally sings in the Erasure tribute band A Little Respect but has just had a stroke. It turns out his replacement is not a fan. Things take an even stranger turn when Tyler is brought out mid-act, dressed in a red sequinned jacket, leather trousers and sunglasses. He sings a few songs about as well as anyone who has just had a stroke could manage, before leaving the stage again. His replacement is so desperate to leave that he begins arguing with Alan Bicknell, who performs as Clarke, when Bicknell announces there are two songs left. “I’m doing one and that’s it,” he declares.
“It’s a bizarre world to be in,” says Mandy Watson, an ex-primary school worker who performs full-time as Kate Bush in Cloudbusting. However strange things may get occasionally, tribute bands are booming. As ageing legends die or retire, and as ticket prices become more exorbitant, these ersatz acts are filling a gap and, consequently, selling out venues across the country. “After Covid we thought no one is going to spend £25 on a ticket,” says Justine Riddoch, who has been performing as Tina Turner in Totally Tina since 2011. “But sales for the last two years have been our strongest ever.”
Riddoch is speaking while rifling through a giant suitcase backstage, picking out her sparkly wardrobe changes. “There’s about 16 dresses here,” she says. “We have them custom-made and it costs me an arm and a leg, but it’s so worth it.”
The dedication required, outside of just recreating note-perfect music, is significant. Twenty two-year-old 02 Academy worker Jack Walker, who performs as Jamie Cook in Arctic Numpties, says he bust his bank account spending £2,500 on the same guitar as Cook plays. “I have spent at least £10,000 being Bono,” says Mike Pickering (no, not the Haçienda DJ), who has been performing as the U2 frontman for the past two years in U2 2. “My clothes are from the exact same designer. The sunglasses alone can be £300 each, and I have 10 pairs. It’s expensive but I love it. I’m just so happy being my hero every night. It’s part of me. Bono is in me in a way.”
Pickering is being quite literal when he says he thinks Bono is in him. “It’s in the genes,” he says. “I was born in the same hospital as him and I do look a lot like him, so my wife and I did DNA tests. In my family tree there’s a link to the Rankin family and Bono’s mum is Iris Rankin. So I might be related to him.
“It’s a deeply spiritual experience,” he says of performing as his possible distant relative. “You have to imagine you’re that person because the people in the audience are looking at you and they want you to be that person. They want you to be Bono and you want to be him. When you get offstage, people grab you for pictures. I speak in a Dublin accent and I’ve perfected Bono’s signature.”
Watson takes the opposite approach when it comes to Kate Bush. “I don’t pretend to be her,” she says. “I’d die of embarrassment. I’m very much Mandy on stage and I talk about my journey with the music. It’s not a parody. Kate was inhabiting characters in her songs, so if I do anything it’s inhabiting the character but never Kate – there’s only one Kate Bush.”
However, there are occasional mix ups. “One guy flew all the way from Japan,” Watson says. “I think he thought I was Kate Bush. He wanted me to sign a programme but he looked very oddly at my name, as I’d written: ‘Best wishes, Mandy.’ I still don’t know to this day if he thinks I’m Kate Bush.”
Watching the Arctic Numpties whip up the audience into such a crowd-surfing frenzy that one reveller loses a shoe, you can feel the hours spent studying their near-namesakes. Walker wears identical outfits to Cook, mimicking his unique stance and sway, while Ben Curry as Alex Turner is alarmingly accurate. “Even the new songs we try and get on top of as soon as possible,” says Walker. “We learn those from fan videos at concerts.” The band have even had to expand their lineup in order to keep up with the sonic evolution of Arctic Monkeys.
As the night goes on, Morrissey and I are having trouble connecting due to signal issues. “I’m supposed to be being interviewed by the Guardian but they can’t find me,” the singer theatrically moans on stage with pithy accuracy. After I locate him we sit on a hay bale, with Johnny Marr and Andy Rourke, in tow, as the sound of the Human League echoes in from the main stage. Jason Alexander Ure, who plays Marr in Frankly, the Smiths, works in a Morrisons warehouse and had his life upended by the band. “I was a rap guy but when I heard the Smiths it changed my world,” he says. “I didn’t even want to play guitar until I heard Johnny Marr.”
Likewise, Steven Stafford, who by day is an art teacher, finds a connection with the singer. “Morrissey suits me because I’m shy, awkward and clumsy,” he says. “I can’t imagine trying to imitate anyone else. It feels very natural, which is strange because you’re being someone else. I feel more like myself when I’m Morrissey.” On stage Stafford endlessly swirls flowers, throwing the £16-worth of Aldi bouquets into the audience with a voice that nails the singer impressively. “But you don’t want to be a caricature,” he adds. “It’s a fine line.”
Peter Stretton, who plays Bez in Happy Mondaze, has taken the role of freaky dancer to such a degree he’s even written his own autobiography as Fake Bez called From the Big House to Brighouse. “I did a seven stretch [in prison],” Stretton says. “Seven days. For non-payment of a fine.” While Stretton may have spent time in jail like the real Bez, he has not gone full method. “I’ve never taken drugs in my life,” he says. “People are like: ‘Here, have a bit of this,’ and I’m like, ‘Nah,’ and they’re like, ‘Well, you’re not a very good Bez, are you?’”
While tribute acts may be viewed as unnecessary competition by some artists, others embrace the trend. Happy Mondaze have performed with the real Bez on multiple lineups, while Bono has said he is “flattered” by the existence of U2 2, with the authentic band even occasionally donating clothes at the end of a tour to their doppelgangers. For other bands, though, the idea of meeting their idols remains an unlikely – if thrilling – prospect. “I’d be fine with Alex Turner telling me I was terrible to be honest,” says Curry. “Just to get to speak with him.”
Watson is less interested in the allure of celebrity and simply has a steadfast dedication to the music that changed her life as a 10 year-old watching Top of the Pops. “I don’t have a yearning to meet her,” she says. “If Kate ever came to one of our shows I would hope she would come away thinking the music she spent so many years crafting is in safe hands. That would be enough for me. I’ll die happy knowing that I’ve done her music justice.”
All the acts mentioned will be performing throughout 2024. Check social media for details.
