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Bootleg Beatles interview - ‘Everybody brings their A-game every night’




Along with the Australian Pink Floyd Show and ABBA tribute band Björn Again, the Bootleg Beatles are arguably the world’s best-known tribute act.

The Bootleg Beatles. Picture: Simon Fowler Photography
The Bootleg Beatles. Picture: Simon Fowler Photography

Together – though not with the same line-up – since 1980, the quartet not only delivers flawless renditions of Beatles classics but also captures the on-stage banter and dry Liverpudlian wit readily associated with the Fab Four.

The shows in the band’s current tour – which hits Cambridge on March 24 – will include all the hits and more, but will also feature a special set dedicated to Let it Be, celebrating the long-awaited release of the critically-acclaimed Peter Jackson Beatles documentary The Beatles: Get Back. As a key part of that, the set will include an authentic re-enactment of the Beatles’ famous 1969 rooftop concert.

Los Angeles-born Tyson Kelly has been portraying John Lennon in the group since August 2018, having previously worked as a Lennon impersonator and performed in shows like Broadway’s Let It Be.

The Bootlegs undertook a tour in December but, prior to that, they hadn’t been out on the road since 2019. “It’s been long overdue,” says Tyson, speaking from his home in Southport, “and we’re all looking forward to a nice spring tour as the weather starts getting better and we’re all able to not have to stay in our buses every night.”

Tyson says he missed playing live during the pandemic but notes that he and his bandmates – Steve White (Paul), Stephen Hill (George) and Gordon Elsmore (Ringo) – kept busy during lockdown. “I think the whole world missed going to shows, that’s for sure,” he notes, “so I imagine all the performers felt the same.

“We did a few videos for the fans from our homes, and I kind of edited them all together and mixed all the footage. We did about a dozen of those so the fans wouldn’t forget that we existed and they appreciated those, and that was fun too. But it was not the same, obviously, we all would have preferred to have just kept touring.”

Tyson, 34, adds: “To be honest with you, at first it was nice! We thought, ‘This is a nice break; we play 120 shows a year – this is great’. We were going really hard in winter and then when it [the pandemic] hit we were all a bit like, ‘This isn’t so bad, a month off, it’ll be great’. Of course two years go by and we’re just wishing it had never happened...”

Since its inception in 1980, the band has performed thousands of gigs across the globe, earning an amazing reputation. The late Beatles producer Sir George Martin described the Bootleg Beatles experience as “a terrific show”, while The Daily Telegraph said simply: “Less a tribute, more a reincarnation”.

Tyson, who calls getting to do what he does a “real privilege” – noting that “everybody brings their A-game every night” – reveals how many musicians have captured the spirit of John, Paul, George and Ringo over the past four decades: “I think there’s been four Ringos, three Pauls, I’m the third John, and there’s only been two Georges – so not as many as you’d think since 1980.”

Did Tyson have to work hard on perfecting his Liverpool accent? “Yes, I did,” he replies. “I was always doing impersonations; I was kind of a theatre kid growing up and always on stage as young as I can remember.

The Bootleg Beatles. Picture: Simon Fowler Photography
The Bootleg Beatles. Picture: Simon Fowler Photography

“So doing accents was always my niche, but then I got obsessed with the Beatles when I was a young teenager. My parents turned me onto them and I just started impersonating John because I was fascinated with John... Of course years later, I ended up doing it for a living – I never saw that coming.

“But I could already kind of do it because I’d watched the Anthology like a dozen times, I knew all the songs and I learned to play the guitar and started a band of my own, so I was already sort of eligible when I started doing it.

“But in terms of getting it [the accent] down really good, moving out to England definitely helped, just listening to everybody speaking. It’s definitely helped bring the percentage of accuracy up too – whatever that number is, I’ll let the audience decide!”

Away from the Bootleg Beatles, Tyson also does solo work and writes music for TV, films and musicals. The band he formed when he was 18, King Washington, toured extensively throughout the US opening for the likes of Collective Soul, Arctic Monkeys, Michael McDonald, Crash Kings, Ambrosia, and Tegan and Sara.

Tyson’s father is renowned songwriter Tom Kelly, known for co-writing massive worldwide hits such as Madonna’s Like A Virgin, Cyndi Lauper’s True Colours, Whitney Houston’s So Emotional, Eternal Flame by The Bangles and the Pretenders’ I’ll Stand By You.

“Yes, very proud of my father,” says Tyson. “He’s retired now – he likes to golf – but he’s written a lot of great songs, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

Tyson adds that he was aware growing up that his dad was responsible for so many pop classics but notes: “I don’t know if it dawned on me how many people in the world knew them.

“I think when I was 18, my family did a little trip out to London, and then we went all over the UK, and I think I remember hearing a song somewhere, in a supermarket, and I was like, ‘Wait a minute, no way!’

“The gravity of the scale of how famous these songs were all over the world is pretty nuts. I was like, ‘Ah, that explains the big house!’”

The Bootleg Beatles will be appearing at the Cambridge Corn Exchange on Thursday, March 24. Visit cornex.co.uk. For more on the band, go to bootlegbeatles.com.

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