OLD TOWN — A gregarious Bono chowed down on a slab of ribs, graciously took pictures with Chicagoans and capped Thursday night off by singing an Irish tune with regulars at celebrity stomping grounds Twin Anchors.
But he refused to sign autographs.
The morning after that Beautiful Day, Twin Anchors co-owner Gina Manrique is no longer sure she found what she was looking for.
“We’re thinking we were duped,” said Manrique, who spent Friday morning zooming in on pictures with the supposed U2 frontman before deciding if she’ll frame and hang them in the restaurant. “He never broke character. He had a full house of people fooled he was Bono.”
Images of the Bono-in-question — disguised behind a signature pair of rose-tinted glasses — have scored thousands of likes online, while leaving more cynical Chicagoans questioning the singer’s true whereabouts.
But Pavel Sfera — who has impersonated Bono for decades and claims to have been a body double for the famous crooner — fessed up to Block Club Friday that he was the One. He declined a phone interview, only answering questions via email.
“I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I wasn’t the real Bono,” Sfera, a California-based Bono impersonator with over two decades on the job, wrote in an email. “I think a moment of, ‘is it or is it not him?’ lends itself to a fun story to tell at dinner parties.”
The real Bono played with U2 at a concert inside the Las Vegas Sphere Wednesday night and took part in Shane MacGowan’s funeral in Ireland on Friday morning. Could he have swung through Chicago on the way?
Sfera told Twin Anchors patrons he was in town for the Serbian Film Festival. That much is true: The festival will screen a documentary about Sfera’s life as Bono at 3 p.m. Saturday in suburban Rosemont.
Sfera said the director and cinematographer took him to Twin Anchors, 1655 N. Sedgwick St., for the “incredible food and ambience” and to collect footage for the film’s extended version.
Manrique noticed the fake Bono was wearing the same necklaces the real Bono wore at his Sphere shows. He belted all the words to Irish ballad “The Fields of Athenry,” declined free dessert and passed on shots of Malört from patrons. He stuck around for several hours and took home “a doggy bag of leftover ribs,” Manrique said.
“We were saying to each other that this was probably our biggest celebrity sighting since Frank Sinatra,” Manrique said. “He took tons of photos with people in the backroom, grabbed someone’s phone and spun around while videotaping. The whole place cheered.”
Sfera called Manrique on Friday to apologize if he got too Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of.
“I would have let them know earlier if the scene didn’t get out of hand … I don’t want to break their hearts if their emotions are really tied to the moment,” Sfera said. “I don’t use an Irish accent when I’m out and generally have a very strong and independent life outside of the Bono persona. Because the Serbian Film Festival is held here with my biography as Bono, the moment lent itself to being in presentable character.”
Manrique said it’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright — and that Sfera may have been Even Better Than The Real Thing.
“Like many people I’m just a big fan. I told the Bono I saw him in 1987 in Champaign when I was still in college,” Manrique said. “I was a little disappointed to find out it wasn’t him, but it also wouldn’t have been as fun if we knew it at the time.”
Sfera said he once sold most of his possessions, mailed his 1,200 books to Chicago and drove to the city over three days in the dead of winter to start life again in a new U2 tribute band — “only to find out that the band had another singer and lied about it.”
He was “asked to body double for Bono for a Vogue magazine shoot in NYC” and appeared in “hundreds of newspapers, magazines, television shows and a few films” in character, he said.
But this is the first time he’s fooled a crowd.
“I never tell people I am Bono,” Sfera said. “I oftentimes joke that I’m Shaquille O’Neal, the other famous Irishman.”
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