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‘We’re so big we could do a gig on the moon’: tribute acts on fame, money and what it takes to make it

Dave Grohl is Bjorn Again’s ‘biggest fan’. Kelly O’Brien took out a loan to buy boobs to match Dolly Parton’s. Four tribute acts reflect on ‘the best job in the world’

But when their bands failed to take off, Stephen had the idea for an Abba cover act: he thought it would be funny and something different from other gigs on the market – and a way to meet all the girls they’d have to audition. When O’Brien first decided to become a Dolly Parton tribute act in 2007, she took out a £10,000 loan to buy “big prosthetic boobs”, wigs, makeup, nails, costumes and custom-made corsets. As well as the paycheque, what keeps O’Brien coming back is the feedback she gets from audiences – such as the woman who told her she’d experienced a miscarriage, but listening to her performance of Light of a Clear Blue Morning made her feel, for the first time, that everything would be OK.

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