It’s said imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Great dedication and effort goes in to not only covering the music of global superstars, but also perfecting the performers’ mannerisms, and cover bands are particularly busy during the summer festival season.So what’s life like for those pretending to be someone else for a living? Tom Brunkard grew up watching Queen videos. The first gig he ever attended was one of Brian May’s, the person Brunkard would go on to play in the tribute band Qween.The group’s first attempt at a Queen tribute band failed due to the “extraordinarily difficult” music, Brunkard says. “We went off and we did 80s music for a few years. That was also difficult. But it was sufficiently enough to bring us up to a standard where we could go back to Queen again.”“Brian May built his own guitar,” Brunkard says, which created an early challenge for the group. “You couldn’t just really buy something that would do it and have that sound. So I had to go on that voyage ... That involved chasing down people who supplied Brian May.”Brian Keville, who plays Freddie Mercury, hired a seamstress to create his costumes initially. “He’s become something of a seamstress himself,” Brunkard says. “It was the only way to do it. Freddie’s got a lot of iconic costumes. They had to be studied. We had to figure out how to make them.” “And then there was the music. And the music is insane. People don’t realise how complex that stuff is.” The group have faced their challenges, and things nearly fell apart a couple of times. The most recent challenge was faced when Keville got cancer. “He’s over it now ... but at the time it was pretty bleak.”Brunkard is conscious of “the clock running against you”. “I’m 45 now ... The good news is I get to wear a wig, but at some point you do age out of it as well.” He describes imitating May as “an honour”. Tony Hadley from Spandau Ballet “hopped up and sang with us in Kildare one year. He did We Are The Champions with us. And he said it was like being on stage with Queen”.And it’s led to other opportunities. “When you spend a lot of time trying to become someone else, people who want to do it on a hobby basis start to look into you. I have a little side business ... helping people sound and play guitar like Brian May.” Qween: Eoghan O'Neill plays bass guitar, Graham Sheridan on drums, Brian Keville as singer Freddie Mercury, Thomas Brunkard as guitarist Brian May and James McGeehan on keyboard. Photograph: Bryan Meade for The Irish Times Some fans and audience members become very emotional at shows, he says. “They see that this is taking it seriously. There is a little bit of tongue-in-cheek-ness to it. But we’re all celebrating it together, and it feels real.”Being part of a tribute band doesn’t stop musicians from making their own music, Brunkard says. “There’s a kind of a juxtaposition that’s put on musicians the whole time: ‘if you’re not writing songs, you’re not really a musician’. It’s kind of a nonsense. Most musicians don’t write songs or compose.”Scott Maher plays Paul McCartney in tribute band The Classic Beatles, and like several Irish artists and bands, they started their career busking on Grafton Street in Dublin.“That’s how we learned harmonies. At the time, it was all very 90s and we were kind of obsessed with The Beatles.” The group decided to “put on wigs and suits and do the character, and take on an act, as opposed to just being a musician. It’s all born out of an obsession with The Beatles”.Maher met the other members of the band through school and “friends of friends”. He and Rob McKinney, who plays George Harrison, have been with the band since the beginning. “We absolutely love what we do.” Maher is a full-time musician, though not a full-time “Beatle”, he says. He finds alternating between the two a “really good challenge”. “I could find myself recording a song that I’ve written on a Monday, and then playing a simple acoustic guitar pub gig on a Thursday, and then playing to five or six hundred people in a theatre on a Saturday night as Paul McCartney. I could be doing funerals on a Tuesday morning. It’s a very wide and varied experience being a musician.”The Classic Beatles performing at the Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray, Co Wicklow. Photograph: Tom Honan for The Irish Times The Classic Beatles: Rob McKinney as George Harrison and Scott Maher as Paul McCartney. Photograph: Tom Honan for The Irish Times He previously played John Lennon, but when their “Paul” left the group, Maher says it was easier to change role than find a replacement, even if that move involved learning to play the bass guitar left-handed. “It was a bit of an undertaking”, he admits. They’ve have had some great experiences, Maher says. “It takes us around the world. Down the years we did a couple of nights with [Beatles producer] Sir George Martin.” [ Are The Beatles too big to fade into obscurity?Opens in new window ]“We also did a gig for the queen of England [Elizabeth II]”, he adds, explaining how they attended a celebration of her coronation. The group didn’t know they were due to play for the queen, just that they were in London to play for a high-profile client. “It was at the time that Britney Spears was in London ... The girl came back and said ‘Okay guys the client tonight is her majesty the queen’, and we were like ‘ah not Britney Spears, no?’” Maher insists the queen had a little dance while they performed.With a new Beatles movie featuring Paul Mescal and Barry Keoghan due for release in 2028, it’s a good time to be a Classic Beatle. Rod Stephen is the only remaining original member of Björn Again. He started at 29 and now in his 60s, he and Björn Again are still going strong. The band began in Melbourne, Australia, in 1987. “What people were tending to do in 1988, was dressing up in jeans, T-shirt trying to imitate American bands and covering them ... Everyone was in a cover band. It was kind of very dull, and very comfortable. So I thought I’m going to turn this on its head. And I’m going to go out on stage, dressed up as Abba, playing Abba’s stuff.”The band quickly snowballed into “cult” status in Australia, Stephen explains. By the end of 1989 “we were a household name throughout Australia”.Abba tribute band Bjorn Again performing at Punchestown Music Festival in 2017. Photograph: Debbie Hickey/Getty Images Björn Again will perform at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre in 2027 It was never Stephen’s intention that Björn Again would be a tribute band. “It was a band set up with lots of creative new ideas, and the iconic look of Abba and their music as a platform,” he says. “There’s so much in a Björn Again show that’s very creative and original, the main one being the choreography. Abba didn’t dance at all.”Stephen, who brings Björn Again’s show to Dublin’s Olympia Theatre in 2027, tops and tails songs for a live performance, giving him the opportunity for his own musical arrangement. “For a lot of the ends I’ve actually put my own music in there.”Stephen knows what Abba think of Björn Again, as they’ve told him. Benny and Björn asked to meet the group on their first trip to Sweden. We thought “we’d be taken to the police station for crimes against Abba”, he jokes. In reality “they were fascinated to hear about the things that we were doing”.Forty years on, Stephen doesn’t worry about becoming too old for Björn Again. “I think Björn Again should be ageing,” he says, “in the same way that Abba are not afraid to demonstrate getting old”.“If I like doing something, I’ll do it ... The best thing for me is to look out and see an audience having a great time. I love it.” Siobhan Kennedy-Perri has played the role of Stevie Nicks in the tribute band Mack Fleetwood for the past 10 years, having previously played Christine McVie in another Fleetwood Mac band. Kennedy-Perri is a classically trained singer and has been a musician all her life. “Stevie Nicks is such an iconic character and I get to wear the most amazing clothes,” she says.Siobhan Kennedy-Perri as Stevie Nicks. Photograph: Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press