The Bootleg Beatles
The Bootleg Beatles are one of Britain's most popular bands- quite an achievement for a group that never release records but have achieved success through their immaculate re-creation of the sights and sounds of the Fab Four live on stage.Popular with all ages, the band are now in the forefront of the contemporary music scene. Their appearances with Oasis in 1996 at Earls Court, Knebworth, Cork and Loch Lomond won them huge new audiences of young fans, and June 1997 saw them as headline artistes in a very muddy acoustic tent at the Glastonbury festival.
Since 1998 they have headlined the 90,000 capacity Roskilde festival (Denmark), joined The Corrs and Simple Minds at the Fleadh (London), played Wembley Stadium with Rod Stewart and Jon Bon Jovi, Anfield with the Manic Street Preachers and Cast and appeared in front of a 40,000 crowd at the Proms in the Park in Hyde Park.
The group formed in 1979 from the cast of the West End musical Beatlemania. One of their many claims to fame is that they have been together longer than the Beatles, whose music they play, note for painstaking note, for audiences all over the world.
The BBs have filled major venues all over the world from the Royal Albert Hall in London to the Budokan in Tokyo, with their show of Beatles music from 1964 to 1970- including many songs that the Fab Four never played live on stage. Their theatre show includes several transformations, archive clips from the era the Beatles helped create, and a string and brass ensemble who help the band recreate numbers like Eleanor Rigby, A Day in the Life and Strawberry Fields Forever. The band use original instruments, from Ludwig drums to Gretsch and Rickenbacker guitars, and VOX valve amplifiers to produce an authentic 60s sound.
Their hard work has paid off and they are acknowledged as the worlds leading Beatle band. They have the distinction of being the first Western rock group to perform in the old Soviet Union, playing a 60 date concert tour back in 1982, entertaining 250,000 people at concerts from Leningrad to Yalta.
In 1999, as part of their 20th Anniversary, the band re-created the famous Apple rooftop performance on the very same rooftop as the originals. Newsteams from all around the world attended the event which was in aid of charity. The same year saw their first ever tour to South Korea and the most successful UK tour in their history. Over the last 2 or 3 years, the band have appeared at festivals all over Europe including Denmarks' Midtfyns, Scotland's T in the Park, England's V2000 and Holland's Lowlands. This year the band performed at Buckingham Palace for the Queen's Golden Jubilee celebrations where they were priviliged to meet Sir Paul McCartney. Later in the year they will be touring Belgium and Holland and will again re-visit Denmark in January 2003.
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