It was 40 years ago TODAY! That’s right folks, it’s The Bootleg Beatles 40th Anniversary of The Bootleg Beatles’ first EVER gig! Of course, life in the BBs was a little different then. For starters we had a different line-up: Neil Harrison was playing John Lennon, André Barreau was on lead guitar playing George Harrison, David Birch was Bootleg- Paul McCartney, and the late Jack Lee Elgood was on drums as Ringo. Here’s a few words on the first day-in-the-life of a Bootleg Beatle, written by André Barreau: It was forty years ago today…26th March 1980 Wednesday morning at 11.00am: a dilapidated Bedford van, owned by Catweazle P.A., pulled up outside Neil Harrison’s terraced house in Chiswick to pick up four members of a newly formed band. As we loaded our hastily purchased second-hand Vox AC30s amps and guitars we were about to embark on a long journey. A very long journey. And so it came to pass, the Bootleg Beatles were born. Beatlemania, the Broadway-to-London musical had closed six weeks earlier and the unemployed cast had become a band with a freshly minted name. The Bootleg Beatles – ‘Direct from the West End’ – the UK’s first ‘copycat’ band (no such thing as tribute back then). Since the curtain had gone down at the Astoria we’d been rehearsing on and off in the basement of Kennedy’s, an upmarket Burger joint in the King’s Road. Even though I was only 23 at the time (you do the maths), I’d played over a thousand gigs before Beatlemania. Prior the call of the West End theatre, Neil had been a former Deram Records artiste, and was making a good living as a songwriter also playing as the ‘Human Juke Box’ across the wine bars of London. Over the previous nine months or so his solo act had become a successful duo, The Beagles – Neil being joined by the prodigious talents of twenty-year old David Birch. I never knew Jack’s (Ringo) true track record. In short – we had pre-Beatlemania form. There was much excitement as Catweazle’s rust-bucket spluttered its way out west down the M4 towards Tiverton in Devon. We stopped at Leigh Delaware to smoke even more Rothmans cigarettes and stare at the Space Invaders machines – I admit it; I’d never been to a services before! We eventually pulled up at the Tiverton Motel venue at five o’clock and soon began rehearsing Back In The USSR, a song we’d never played but had decided on doing through the hazy tobacco smoke somewhere on the M5. That famous first gig was for the North Devon College of Higher Education, booked by through the NEMS agency (formerly run by Brian Epstein) who we’d signed to a few weeks before. Why the gig was on a Wednesday, in mid-term I never found out. Student’s Unions had money back then, that’s for sure – not that we saw much of it for that show. To be fair, compared to today’s highly professional ‘Tribute’ world we were decidedly costume light. One long John Lennon wig (and National Health specs), four black polo necks and a denim shirt. And two moustaches. Of course, we all had official Anello and Davide Chelsea boots – Dave and I even wore those in civvy life. The moptops were really real – hair-wise at least. And so the show came and went. Early Beatles in the first half, late in the second. An hour was about all we could manage then. I remember hearing ‘Turning Japanese’ by the Vapours in the interval – surely I should have been ‘out there’ making records like that? We went down really well – were all ecstatic. On the way back the euphoria subsided. The van door wouldn’t shut properly and the warm, sunny spring day had turned to an icy cold night. We froze. The ride back took hours – we got back before dawn, but only just. With no tubes running, Neil kindly let the three of us stay at his, variously sprawled across his Habitat three-piece suite. Two days later we were in France, playing in Rouen. The rest as they say…