By MICHELLE HERBISON
MODESTY prevailed when Barry Gibb impersonator Damian Wynne met his Bee Gees idol last year at the unveiling of a tribute statue at Redcliffe, Queensland.
“I didn’t want to push myself onto him too much and say, ‘Hey, I’m you’,” Wynne recalled.
Gibb gave him a phone number and requested an invitation next time the Ultimate Bee Gees performed in America.
But Wynne said the band’s next chance to visit the locale of the last remaining Bee Gee would be a few years off since the group’s schedule was already booked through next year.
Wynee said the popular tribute show, also featuring Robert Days as Maurice Gibb and Karl Lenz as Robin Gibb, was enjoying great success with sold-out shows across the country and touring around the globe.
Growing up listening to the Bee Gees’ music then taking singing lessons from John Farnham’s teacher, Jack White, helped Wynne “fall into the Barry thing” about five years ago, he said.
“I really loved the music of the Bee Gees and once I started singing it I just couldn’t stop. With the right tuition and grounding, the falsetto was something I developed over a period of time.”
Wynne said Staying Alive was undeniably his favourite track, filling the dance-floor every time.
“We’ve had women jumping on tables and throwing undies at us. The big thing the Bee Gees had was everybody could relate to the music and they were about having fun and dancing.”
Wynne said the light-hearted Ultimate Bee Gees show took audiences through the five decades of the band’s success, including both the brothers’ performing and song-writing careers, he explained.
Wynne said his band immortalised the three brothers in the time of their 1997 show One Night Only at the MGM Grand, Las Vegas, by dressing in their outfits from that night.
The show began with such hits as Massachusetts, I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You, Spicks and Specks and How Can You Mend a Broken Heart and moved into the disco era, with the second half paying tribute to the band’s Saturday Night Fever work, he said.
The Ultimate Bee Gees Live on Tour show is at North Geelong’s Sphinx Hotel on 7 December.
