I was pleasantly surprised by the reception of the crowd and later in the evening the owner of the restaurant approached me and asked if I would like to make this a regular Saturday night gig. So began my life as an Elvis Presley tribute artist.
From these solo appearances my popularity grew, as did the number of appearances. These included offers to sing at weddings as well as several corporate and charitable events.
During 2001 and 2002, the number of appearances I was asked to do was increasing rapidly. One of the highlights during this period was when I was asked to appear in Melbourne before an Australian Heavyweight Title fight.
I may not have won the bout, but I certainly won the crowd.
During 2003 I was approached by a Roy Orbison tribute band and asked to join them. Our first year together was taken up with rehearsals and perfecting our act. Once this had been accomplished to everyone’s satisfaction, we decided to take it on the road.
The band had been playing for almost ten years prior to me joining them, so naturally with a new line-up and the 10 months rehearsal behind us, we were all a little nervous before our first performance which took place in Geelong, Victoria. (Approximately 85km from Melbourne).
Even with our months of rehearsal, not everything went as smoothly as we had planned. With the band playing the intro to the first song, I took a deep breadth and let rip into a non-functioning microphone. With cries of “sing up, we can’t hear you”, the embarrassment was soon replaced with applause and cheers as we finally got the microphone working.
Now that would have been enough to put most people off, but as a professional outfit we continued as if nothing had happened, until during the fourth song and doing my very best Elvis moves across the front of the stage and encouraging the front row to join in, I was so engrossed in my performance that I completely misjudged the end of the stage and fell off.
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