Some tribute artists are a natural fit for the musicians they emulate, told that they look and sound like a particular performer for years before they begin playing them on stage.
Not Michael Clift, who takes the role of Barry Gibb as frontman of the world renowned Australian Bee Gees show.
Formed in Melbourne in 1996, the award-winning tribute act has clocked up more than 4000 shows over 14 years during its residency at the Excalibur Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
But according to Clift, when the band began he “hadn’t quite figured out” how to sing and perform like the legendary Gibb.
“It was more like, bite off more than you can chew, and chew like hell,” he said.
“I had short hair, I was clean-shaven… and I really didn’t have a falsetto, which is a key part to Barry’s stuff, especially the stuff from the 70s. So I was the antithesis of a Barry Gibb type of singer.
“But we fell in love with the idea of doing the show and we all had our roles to play. So it was up to me to figure out how to do it.
“It wasn’t so much we were born to do it, more like we thought it was a fantastic concept and enjoyed the music, and then we made ourselves fit the roles.”
In the mid-90s Clift and band were pursuing their dreams of being an original “quirky pop rock band”. However, shortly after financially committing to an album, grunge swept across the music scene.
“I remember, we were in the studio recording, and our producer was like, we’re pretty much screwed,” Clift said.
“All our money was put into our second album and Nirvana came from nowhere, and what we were recording wasn’t ‘it’. Every record company in Australia was looking for flannelette shirt copies of Nirvana and we knew we’d done our dash.”
Inspired by the rise of other tribute shows during that time, Clift had the idea to start a Bee Gees band, and once the idea took hold he couldn’t let go. The rest, as they say, is history.
The Australian Bee Gees show is at Geelong Arts Centre on Thursday, April 3.
