With The Zeatles!

The Word Is Love is constantly receiving letters and emails telling how The Beatles music is influencing musicians all over the world, but when Kester Peters wrote to me I was sure that we'd found a Beatles Band at the furthest possible place from Liverpool… a whole 11582 miles away in Wellington, New Zealand!!

Hi I'm Kester. I'm English, and I play Paul McCartney. I moved over here in May 1999 to live with my kiwi girlfriend, who rather spookily is called Lynda! I dabbled with trying to get a tribute band together back in the UK but as you know, the market is rather saturated. Not so in New Zealand. Over here I'm a big fish in a small pond, and I have been able to unleash my psychotic Beatles tendencies to full effect.

I formed The Zeatles in July 1999 and our first gig was as headliners for the millennium celebrations here in Wellington. So I guess that we can lay claim to being the first Beatles tribute show to play this century! Our largest gig to date has been in front of 5000 barmy rock 'n' roll fans at a yearly national festival. Audiences over here are slightly different to back home, mainly because a Beatles tribute show in New Zealand is big news. We get so few international acts passing through that a home-grown version is bound to reap rewards.

My gameplan has always been to exceed expectations. Thus while other bands and shows play a two hour set maximum, our show is over four hours long! As you will see from the website, we cover all major periods. The Sgt. Pepper costumes were made in the UK by a top dress designer - my mom. She was featured in the local Express and Star paper with the costumes. That's right, I'm a Brummy, but we all have our crosses to bear! Things are going really well for us. We have regular bookings around New Zealand, mostly in chartered clubs and Returned Services Associations. These venues are not like British Legion clubs back home - they act as the principal entertainment centre for each area. Some have memberships of over 3000 people, which in a country of about 3 million (and as many sheep) is big news. We try to draw a distinction between the words "band" and "show" and try to make the gigs more of an event, with intro tapes, a big lighting rig, etc.

The guys in the band are all diamond geezers, but given that we bill ourselves as New Zealands' finest tribute, some people are a bit put out to find that there's only one New Zealander! Two of the guys are from Belgrade. We try to be as authentic as possible. You can get away with a bit more over here, but as you can see, I'm left handed. So is Ringo, we all sing the right parts and our 'John' is an absolute fruit-cake! Even the accents are good (for foreigners!).

I'm so proud of what we've all achieved thus far. I know that we will continue to develop and we're always looking back to the lives and music of John, Paul, George and Ringo to better ourselves. My ultimate ambition would be to take The Zeatles to the UK, especially the Beatles convention in Liverpool. That would be amazing!

Anyway, I've got to dash off now as 'cos we've got a radio interview to do!!

Kester

Just last week Kester contacted The Word Is Love to tell us that The Zeatles had been asked to play in Liverpool this August!! We're looking forward to seeing them achieve one of their greatest ambitions - playing at Beatleweek!!

Nina Douglas with Kester Peters
TWIL Issue Seven February 2002