Debora McLane is the niece of Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb. She is a special guest for The Best of the Bee Gees stage show North Island tour which includes Gisborne.
Debora McLane is the niece of Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb. She is a special guest for The Best of the Bee Gees stage show North Island tour which includes Gisborne.
A singer with a direct family link to the superstar band is one of the stars of The Best of the Bee Gees show to be staged at Gisborne’s Memorial Theatre on Wednesday, August 13.
Debora McLane is the daughter of Lesley Evans (nee Gibb), who is the elder sisterof Sir Barry (now 78), Robin (died 2012) and Maurice Gibb (died 2003) – better known as the Bee Gees – and youngest sibling Andy Gibb (died 1988), a singing star in his own right.
Gisborne is one of 11 North Island centres where The Best of the Bee Gees will be performed on a tour which marks nearly 50 years since the group’s Grammy-awarded Saturday Night Fever disco album was released in 1977.
The Best of the Bee Gees features Greg Wain as Maurice, Russell Davey as Robin, and Evan Webster as Barry.
McLane and Roslyn Loxton, who is described as “a global chanteuse”, are special guests on the tour.
McLane recalls what it was like growing up in Sydney with the Gibbs as family members.
“It was our normal and was wonderful. When we did get together as a family, they were cherished moments. We would go to America, and on the rare occasion someone would come back to Australia and, although distant, we are a close family.
“[I have] many great memories of my childhood being surrounded by incredibly famous people and totally oblivious to the company ... just happy to play with my cousins.”
Her uncles, not surprisingly, inspired her path into the music industry as a singer.
“Yes, [I was] very much influenced to sing, and it was always something I knew I would do.
“I never chased fame and have been fortunate enough to still be singing.
“I have played guitar and a little piano. However, not good enough to play either in public.”
McLane, who has a twin sister, is looking forward to the tour, which starts in Auckland on August 9.
“Very much excited to be heading to NZ,” she said. “I have always wanted to go there. My parents considered moving to NZ as my father fell in love with it travelling there for work. Definitely on my bucket list and can’t wait.
“Knowing what the show will bring to NZ is very exciting and [I’m] so thrilled to be a part of this.”
McLane’s mother – described in “inner circles” as “the fourth Bee Gee” after performing with the band in their early days – has endorsed the show, along with original Bee Gees musicians.
“I’ve never seen a more professional tribute to the Bee Gees with those beautiful harmonies which are so difficult to achieve,” Evans said in a press release.
“They have worked hard to reproduce the unique sound of my brothers. So tastefully done. Absolutely brilliant ... If you’re a Bee Gees fan, this is the concert for you.”
The two-act show opens with a range of hits spanning the decades and written by the brothers Gibb – songs such as Chain Reaction (Diana Ross), Grease (Frankie Valli), Islands in the Stream (Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers), Woman in Love (Barbara Streisand) and Heartbreaker (Dionne Warwick).
Greg Wain performs as Maurice Gibb in The Best of the Bee Gees show coming to Gisborne in August.
Saturday Night Fever was central to the sound of disco, and the second act delivers hits such as Night Fever, Jive Talkin’, Disco Inferno, Stayin’ Alive, More Than A Woman, How Deep Is Your Love and You Should Be Dancing.
Saturday Night Fever, released in November 1977, became the biggest-selling album in music history until Michael Jackson’s Thriller (November 1982) and has sold over 40 million copies.
It topped the charts in the United States for 24 consecutive weeks and was on Billboard’s album charts for 120 weeks.
Four of the album’s singles – How Deep Is Your Love, Stayin’ Alive, and Night Fever by the Bee Gees, and If I Can’t Have You by Yvonne Elliman – reached No 1 in the US.
The Best of the Bee Gees in front of a huge crowd at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne.
Saturday Night Fever was added to the American National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress in 2012 for being “culturally, historically and aesthetically significant”.
