Since their huge burst of popularity in the late ‘70s due to the juggernaut that was ‘Saturday Night Fever’, The Beegees night fever has been stayin’ alive with the help of the renowned Australian Beegees Tribute Show.
Covering Bee Gees hits for the last 20 years the show has received illustrious acclaim worldwide – even scoring a six night a week residency at Las Vegas’ Excalibur Casino which is currently in its 6th successful year running. However, it hasn’t been an easy feat to achieve this, according to Michael Clift, the lead performer who portrays lead singer/songwriter Barry Gibb.
“We had an agent over here that was touring us around the U.S. and the reason we approached him was because we wanted to get the show into Vegas – which of course is not an easy thing to do,” he says.
“He said it was a little bit risky and all he could really offer was other shows around the U.S. and after a few years our numbers were really good in the casinos and theatres we were touring in and it kind of evolved from that. A room came available at the Excalibur and he had one of his shows in there and he thought he will give us a shot. I think it was six years of touring before it came about – it was a lot of hard work.”
To Michael, however, the Bee Gees buzz started well and truly before ‘Saturday Night Fever’. “I was a younger kid when they were releasing a lot of their early ‘70s work and their back catalogue of the ‘60s. They had songs on the radio and I grew up in Canberra and listened to AM radio and we got a lot of the Bee Gees, The Beatles and the Seekers and that was the sort of stuff that got played. So I grew up listening to them and then when the ‘Saturday Night Fever’ wave of disco hits in the ‘70s I was in high school and you couldn’t escape it – it was everywhere.”
He reminisces before continuing, “They were sort of dismissed because of the whole disco period and back then they were sort of the pop icons. They copped the backlash of the disco period but really there was a lot more to them.”
Michael is not alone in his love for the Bee Gees back catalogue, with the show now being a theatre spectacular worldwide, recently playing a handful of shows in India.
“India is one of those countries that has its own film and music industry, so it’s very isolated in terms of western influence and that’s by choice. There is surprisingly a lot of people who enjoy western music and a lot of ex-pats over there, we were quite surprised at how many people where there at the show and it’s something that we will definitely go back and do,” Clift reflects on the experience.
After playing in India the show returned to Las Vegas for some performances before making its way back to its homeland of Australia. With shows all around the country including a handful in Geelong and surrounding areas; Bendigo, Colac and Warrnambool.
The excitement is buzzing from the performers, with Clift eagerly stating, “We always like coming home. We play big theatres around the world and we always play small shows. It really doesn’t matter to us; what’s more important is that we have a good crowd there. Big theatres are fun, but we also love small shows. It’s good to change it up.”
Written by Alex Callan
When & Where: GPAC, Geelong – April 17, The Capital, Bendigo – April 20, COPAC, Colac – April 29 & Lighthouse Theatre, Warrnambool – May 1
