Pavel Sfera confusing people in Camden Town

BUSKERS playing to crowds of passing tourists outside Camden Town tube station has long been part of the area’s furniture.

But anyone passing by the busy intersection one day last month would have seen a slightly larger audience around two performers than usual.

Fifty people with their cameras out surrounded a duo while they played rock band U2’s I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For – and they looked just like frontman Bono and guitarist the Edge.

Despite a host of people – and a Reddit forum – believing that U2 had come to Camden Town, the long-established Bono imper­sonator, Pavel Sfera, and Edge doppelganger Steve Richards were the singers behind the microphone. Musician Mr Sfera, 57, was born in then-Yugoslavia to Romanian parents.

He told the New Journal that he “started the whole look-alike thing” when he was just 11.

Mr Sfera said: “It’s mad isn’t it. Still now, 44 years later, I don’t see what other people see. About 99 per cent of the time people don’t ask if I’m Bono, they just assume I am, even when I’m not wearing glasses.

“They say ‘I’m a big fan of U2’ and I say ‘yeah, me too’. People have a very strong emotional attachment and I don’t want to break that moment for them.

“There’s a compassionate side to this: I have rules of engagement. I don’t sign people’s memorabilia; I don’t get free items. I’m never inappropriate with anybody because they have a deep affection for someone else and I don’t own that.

A visit to Camden Town with The Edge’s doppelganger Steve Richards

“But I am grateful that the love exists and I’m honoured and humbled for a brief moment to allow that love to flow.

“There are times when people come up to me and say they’ve lost a parent and U2’s music has brought them some comfort, and I’m in no place to break that bubble for them.”

He started doing Bono impersonations across the world as a full-time job in 2001 and said the money was good until the financial crash in 2008.

To look like the frontman, Mr Sfera said: “I dye my hair. I wear these glasses that cost £600 a pair and I’ve got five of them. I use mascara to darken my goatee. I’ve got identical clothes and I’m eternally grateful that Bono wears black so it’s easy to style.”

Mr Sfera and his Edge-double found themselves playing Desire outside the station after they were booked to play at a wedding in the Dublin Castle by a U2 superfan.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK. CLICK BANNER.