You’ve heard of Beatlemania, but what about Bootleg Beatlemania? It can happen. “When we go to the Philippines, we have to have an armed guard with a blacked-out van,” says Stephen Hill, who is George Harrison in the tribute band The Bootleg Beatles. “You can’t go anywhere. We say, ‘I’m starving – I need to go and get some food,’ and he gets his gun out because people will mob you. You go to the airport, and you can’t move two steps without somebody wanting a wacky face on a selfie. It’s madness. We’re not even dressed up. I’m walking out with my grey hair.”
“A girl went viral on TikTok, because she made a video with the caption ‘I was so drunk I thought this was the Beatles,’” says Miles Frizzell, the band’s Paul McCartney. “And she’s just at our show screaming at the top of her lungs at all the songs. It’s cool that they’re getting that much into it.”
There are thousands of Beatles cover bands all over the world, but The Bootleg Beatles remain the premier Fab Four tribute. Formed in in 1980 by four cast members of the West End musical Beatlemania, The Bootleg Beatles have since performed over 4,500 concerts in every corner of the globe, from the Royal Albert Hall to the State Theatre in Sydney.
