John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, nicknamed the Fab Four, enchanted the world throughout the 60s, revolutionizing every aspect of the music industry, with their unique pop rock style stamping their reputation as most influential band of all time.

In Liverpool, the birthplace of the Beatles, the International Beatlesweek Festival is held annually every August, featuring dozens of tribute bands from around the world. Indonesia’s G-Pluck has been lucky enough to participate twice, although because of the pandemic, this year’s event was reduced to a stream of the participants’ pre-recorded performances.

“We sent our video. The organizers seemed impressed with our performance,” Awan Garnida, the band leader, told The Jakarta Post.

G-Pluck will return to the festival next year, with Awan saying the band was honored to be among the select few tribute bands invited to Beatlesmania.

“Almost certainly we are coming back next year. Of course, it means a lot for us and Beatles fans because it is the most celebrated international tribute band event,” said Awan, who performs as Paul McCartney.

The other band members are Sigit Adnan (John Lennon), Wawan Hidayat (George Harrison) and Beni (Ringo Starr).

During the band’s first performance at the 2008 festival, which reportedly featured 150 tribute bands from 20 countries, they performed on nine stages and got the chance to visit the childhood homes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

The two music icons are the creative geniuses behind much of the Beatles’ repertoire, having composed most of the Fab Four’s tracks. After embarking on a successful solo career, Lennon was tragically shot dead in New York in 1980, while McCartney went on to form his own band, Wings, after the Beatles broke up. Hooks and Harmony lists on its website, hooksandharmony.com, 25 reasons why the Beatles are the greatest band of all time. One key reason is their compositional talent. “One may not like songs such as ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Hey Jude’, but they are unrivaled in their popularity, and the melodies are unforgettable,” it states.

Indonesia’s fab four: The members of G-Pluck, (from left) Awan (Courtesy of/G-Pluck)

Asian Beatles

In the time that has passed since the Beatles broke up, thousands of tribute bands have emerged. It all started in 1977, when the musical Beatlemania, advertised as a “rockumentary”,  premiered at the Colonial Theater in Boston in the United States.

The show soon headed to Broadway, before being taken across the country, with the producers casting two teams of musicians to perform as the Beatles in different cities.

After watching a film version of the musical in the early 1990s, Awan said he was amazed by the performances of the tribute band and felt inspired to form his own. He gathered his friends, held auditions and founded G-Pluck in 1997.

The name is pronounced the same as jiplak, the Indonesian word for “impersonate”. But Awan elaborated further on the meaning behind the name.

“G stands for genuine and pluck means gut, grit. Despite all our shortcomings, we use all our grit to perform as the Beatles as authentically as possible,” he said.

Unlike cover bands, which perform popular songs by many different artists, tribute bands usually study the work of a specific group or performer and take to the stage to give a performance that as closely as possible imitates the artists, including the vocals, the instrumentation and the performance style as a whole.

For that reason, Awan, who plays guitar right-handed, had to follow a strict practice regime for many months to be able to play left-handed like McCartney.

He also has a collection of bass guitars similar to those played by McCartney. Even the guitar straps are selected with meticulous attention to detail.

“I bought a guitar in London and the straps in Canada,” he said about his hunt for “genuine” items.

There are five basic looks adopted by Beatles tribute bands: Cavern Club, Sullivan Show, Shea Stadium, Sergeant Pepper and Abbey Road.

In their Cavern Club look, the band wore black vests and black trousers, with John playing his unpainted Rickenbacker 325C58, George his Gretsch duo jet, Paul his old Hofner 500-1 and Ringo a Ludwig Black Oyster Pearl ‘Super Classic’.

“We have the most complete collection of all tribute bands in Southeast Asia,” Awan said, adding that he had ordered all the costumes from abroad.

G-Pluck’s authenticity has won it the status of the “Asian Beatles”.

Apart from Beatlesmania in England, the band has been invited to perform in Europe, including the Netherlands and Belgium in 2017.

“Beatles songs are still loved by people of all walks of life and from generation to generation. This will help G-Pluck continue to play and receive invitations to perform at home and abroad,” Djati Wibowo, a Beatles diehard, said.

Meanwhile, Arief, a photographer, who has adored the Beatles since he was a schoolboy, has gathered an impressive collection of cassettes and paraphernalia and also formed the tribute band the Beaters with his friends as a teenager.

The Beaters may have only lasted four years, but his passion for the Beatles has never faded, with Arief uploading his solo covers of Beatles hits to YouTube.

“I love the music of the Beatles,” the photo journalist said.