Rolling Stones tribute headlines festival of fakes in Southsea

Now he’s riding high as Sir Michael - or Mick Jogger, as he prefers to call him - in The Rolling Zones, one of the bands heading for Southsea’s Fake Fest at the Castle Field, Southsea on October 1 from 1-10pm.

Mark’s Stones tribute shares the bill with The Fool Fighters and Rhapsody Is This The Real Queen who will be performing alongside some of the best local covers bands.

Tickets are on http://shop.portsmouth.co.uk/c-vtk/event-tickets/all-tickets; adults £19.99 (children under 16 go free with a paying adult - maximum one child per paying adult).

Wiltshire-based, The Rolling Zones will be aiming to do justice to the world’s greatest rock ‘n’ band - and what a back catalogue they’ve got to play with.

“It’s just such a fantastic range of songs,” says Mark. And so many of them are so instantly recognisable. It takes barely a bar or two and you know you’re listening to Jumping Jack Flash, you know you’re listening to Satisfaction, you know you’re listening to Honky Tonk Women, classics one and all.

Mark saw the real thing at the O2 a few years ago: “I remember thinking ‘Oh, he’s singing the songs that I do!’ But Mick was just amazing. He is just so fit.”

There are plenty of Stones tributes out there. Many of them just don’t nail it at all. But Mark is confident that his Rolling Zones capture that indefinable something that makes The Stones The Stones.

“When you listen to them, they are very loose, but within that looseness, they are very tight, if you know what I mean. The way they play is amazing. Keith has got that amazing ability with the riffs that you just instantly know, and he works so well with Ronnie.

“Without wanting to blow our own trumpet, our Keith and Ronnie work really well together.”

With the real thing at the back, of course, you’ve got Charlie Watts on drums “looking vaguely disinterested at times but always bang on.

“With any band you have got to have the drums and the bass to hold it together, and Charlie really does that. And I think our drums and bass do that. And we are just so privileged to be playing such great songs!”