This review was also published on the Gig Buddies website here
From the camp swagger of a stand-in in Mick Jagger, to the fag-in-mouth rock star posturing of a wanna-be Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards to endless tongue-in-cheek between-song banter (“Don’t worry we’re not going to be doing any of the recent stuff”) a night with the Counterfeit Stones is as much theatre as it is rock gig. However, they play just great and capture the sound of the 60s and 70s Stones really nicely.
Photo credit: artist publicity
From the very early covers (‘Carol’ and ‘It’s All Over Now’) through to the era-defining Jagger/Richards compositions of the mid 60s (‘Time Is On My Side’, ‘Get Off My Cloud’, ‘Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown’, ‘Satisfaction’ et al) through to those perennial giants of late 60s/early 70s rock mega-stardom (including ‘It’s Only Rock n Roll’, ‘Brown Sugar’ and ‘Honky Tonk Women’) the band kept true to their word of not playing anything released in the last thirty years. The disco-funk of ‘Miss You’ from 1978 and what many consider to be the last really great Stones song – ‘Start Me Up’ (released in 1981) were the most recent material that made the set-list tonight.
Aside from their tongue-in-cheek personas and schoolboy humour stage name’s the band are highly competent musicians who play well together, the Nicky Hopkins soundalike adding a real touch of authenticity. Outfit-wise they eschewed the hounds-tooth jackets or menacing black suits of the early Stones and gone for a late 70s/early 80s Stones look.
The full band are:
- Nick Dagger is played by Steve Elson.
- Keef Rickard is played by Stuart Fiddler
- Charlie Mott is played by John Prynn.
- Ronnie B Goode are played by David Birnie.
- Bill Hymen is played by Steve Jones.
- Nicky Popkiss is played by Holger Skepeneit.
I work for a charity called Stay Up Late which campaigns for adults with learning disabilities to be able to choose the sort of lifestyle they want to live and we also run the successful Gig Buddies project across Sussex. Accompanying me to the gig was Daniel who is one of our participants and an active campaigner for the charity as well as being an avid gig-goer.
Daniel’s verdict: “It was brilliant. I enjoyed dancing. I thought I’d bring my earplugs just in case but I loved how loud it was. Afterwards, I managed to get the whole band’s autographs.”
Darren's music blog 