It’s a little bit funny — when Rus Anderson started playing gigs on the beach in Clearwater, Fla., he couldn’t have imagined where it would lead.

The Scottish musician, who started playing piano at 4, was often told he resembled Elton John. During his gigs, requests would flow in for John’s music.

“I started playing more and more piano-based stuff and then one day, my wife and I decided: Why don’t we put together a show of just Elton John music? So we did that,” he said. “They sold out.”

The tribute show just kept growing, almost out of his control. But it wasn’t until 2017 when things got really big, Anderson said. That’s when he received an email from John’s lawyer.

“It turns out, Elton and his office, they wanted to use the act as a kind of stunt-double publicity thing for various projects,” he said. “It’s kind of like, ‘You have to pinch me’ because I’m actually doing stuff for Elton John.”

Anderson vividly remembers how he felt when meeting the man he had been paying tribute to for years.

“I was so scared. It was like meeting Henry VIII, you just don’t know how to act or what to do,” he joked. “It turns out, everyone was so nice, and Elton was genuinely interested in the concept of a tribute show to him. He knew that there were impersonators, but he didn’t know that there was a band and a tribute show that reenacts a whole concert of his from the ’70s.”

This weekend, Anderson will bring the rock star’s iconic spirit and charm to Colorado Springs with “The Rocket Man Show” at Phil Long Music Hall at Bourbon Brothers. Anderson described the show as a detailed recreation of John’s performances in the early 1970s during the height of his career.

“We take the audiences on a journey,” Anderson said. “It’s all the antics: It’s the jumping around, jumping on the piano, jumping off the piano, costume changes, some beautiful instrumentals, some lovely stories that we tell the audience about.”

To stay authentic, the band reenacts John’s live performances rather than playing the recorded versions of songs. During the performance, Anderson dons John’s original costumes, including the famous peacock outfit (Anderson’s personal favorite).

“I wear costumes that Elton John actually wore,” Anderson said. “So when I walk out on stage with those outfits, the last time they were on stage was 50 years ago, and it was Elton that was wearing them.”

The most special part of these shows is seeing the wide range of audience members, from some who witnessed John’s original performances to others being introduced to his showmanship.

“We’re getting to not only bring memories back to people but also to introduce Elton John to a whole other generation of people. And that’s one of the things that we really love,” Anderson said. “To reenact the magic of an Elton John concert and to really let people understand why he is who he is.”