Lockdown fun as "Elvis" meets "The Bee Gees".... in Worthing!

“My friends and I put together this video with the aim to cheer people up, put a smile on people’s faces and get them up and dancing even if it’s in their own kitchen”, Mark said.

Filmed remotely in their individual homes, modern technology has brought Mark and the band together for their Elvis-inspired version of the disco anthem.

Bass player Jim Davis said: ‘Like many bands, Covid has seen most of our gigs cancelled this year. If we can’t play together live, this is the next best thing! We’re really happy with how it’s turned out and we can’t wait to get back to playing live in 2021!”

Mark, an Elvis fan for more than 30 years, was delighted with the way the video turned out: “The idea is to bring a smile to people’s faces. So many are missing going to see live music. It will return.”

Mark said: “I have known Jim in the band for years and the band approached me. They said ‘Let’s do something during lockdown.’ We thought let’s do The Bee Gees’ Staying Alive, but all the better for the fact that it is Elvis doing it, proving that he is in fact still alive!

“They recorded all their parts and they sent me the backing track. I have been doing live-streaming throughout the lockdown, and after one of my Elvis concerts I put the backing track on and recorded myself five or six times. I had just finished doing the show so I was completely in the Elvis frame of mind – so that’s when I recorded it.”

It made for a bright end to a difficult year: “It was all really going well until March and then everything stopped. The gigs actually stopped before lockdown because it was becoming clear that it wasn’t safe to do them and we have an obligation to people to keep them safe, so I went from three or four gigs a week to zero. So I thought ‘What am I going to do about it?’ I thought ‘I am OK. I have savings.’ I wasn’t too worried financially, but what was I going to do with myself. And I just thought that all I can do is actually what I do do and so I did it. I started doing a couple of concerts a week online just as if I were performing normally; I was just doing them on Facebook live.

“And people have really appreciated a continuation of entertainment in a different form. And because it is Facebook Live you can be interactive. You can really feel like it is a live performance going on. It has been a way of connecting with people. I just didn’t know what it was going to be like at first, and it was the weirdest thing the first time I did it – to be walking into your lounge and singing into your phone. But you have just got to try to project yourself as if you were in a stadium and it really works.

“I have been an Elvis fan for more than 30 years. I love his universality. No matter where you are from in the world, he has a love that is generated for him and his music. It transcends race and gender and everything. He didn’t write his own songs. It was his performance that did it – and that performance was so audacious, walking on in that ridiculous jumpsuit. When I became an Elvis impersonator, it was that era that I wanted to do. I wanted to put on that jumpsuit. It is empowering. You feel like you are walking in someone else’s shoes.”