The street corner of Camden Town Tube Station is one of London’s hottest spots for buskers to captivate an audience with rock/pop hits and occasional beat-boxing mayhem. But no one could have predicted that rock legends Bono and The Edge from U2 would join the party, performing alongside street performer Serena Kaos on her cover of “With Or Without You.”
In this viral video (currently boasting over 1.6M YouTube views), an onlooker films Serena’s vocal performance from the center of a vast, circling crowd. Her rendition of U2’s 1987 hit single is stunning, calm, and absorbing, backed by an acoustic guitar and the voices of her audience. But amongst the myriads, U2’s vocalist and guitarist, Bono and The Edge, are spotted. These famous faces hardly blend into the crowd—just look at the spectators filming in Bono’s direction rather than Serena’s!
Serena clocks who she’s performing for, and invites Bono to her street stage for the song’s next verse. Clad in all-black, Bono moves a little too close to the busker, putting his arm around her shoulder and taking one hand in his to deliver the lyrics in harmony. Viewers have praised the way Bono gives Serena the limelight, not taking over her set like a maniacal celebrity but allowing her organic talent to shine over his. He even points out her hat, encouraging the crowd to throw some coins in!
At least, that’s what everyone thought they were seeing. Turns out, this Bono & The Edge weren’t actually Bono & The Edge — they were tribute artists who just happened to be walking through Camden, tricking everyone into believing they were the real U2 superstars! We can’t decipher how much of this Serena x “U2” performance was staged, but they had the entire audience fooled.
Pavel Sfera has been impersonating Bono for over 25 years and, according to his site, has even doubled for Bono himself at numerous events and appearances. Alongside being the world’s leading Bono impersonator, Pavel is a “dedicated humanitarian” with decades of volunteer work involving orphanages, disaster relief organizations, and climate change. Pavel frequently collaborates with Steve Richards, who became a professional David “The Edge” Evans impersonator after being made redundant in December 2022.
Serena Kaos, the “true” star of the whole video, is a rising singer-songwriter self-described as a “maker of music for the soul”. Her debut EP, “Slowly This Time,” dropped in May 2023: six tracks of bluesy, jazz-pop bliss which play out like a dreamscape. Serena left her Portuguese home to live in London in 2021 and works as a full-time professional street performer in the capital, revealing in her short YouTube documentary, “I came to London to seize every opportunity and use all my time to show my music, my voice, my art.”
For more from the exceptionally talented Serena Kaos, you can follow her [[YouTube Channel]](https://www.youtube.com/@SerenaKaos) where she regularly posts renditions of popular rock/pop hits and occasionally surprises her viewers with her beat-boxing skills. You can also find her on [[Facebook]](https://www.facebook.com/serenakaos) and [[Instagram]](https://www.instagram.com/serenakaos), where she shares more about her experiences as a street performer in one of London’s hottest spots for buskers, Camden Town.