However, there is an incarnation of the band in the States called The New Frankie Goes To Hollywood Featuring Davey Johnson. The six-member act’s only tie to the original band is through Davey Johnson, who, although he has no familial relations to the former vocalist, claims to have a connection with the group.

“[Davey] never toured with the group but was a studio musician with the original group,” band manager Chuck Harris of Visual Arts Group told Pollstar. Harris couldn’t name which album Davey Johnson recorded on but insisted he has legal ownership of the touring name.

“Davey legitimately went down and hired an attorney and paid the price to register that name legally,” Harris said. “He has the name and he’s keeping up the tradition. So I do not want to say it’s a copy group and it’s not a tribute band.”

Richard Lustig of Lustig Talent has represented the band since July, around the time group founder Holly Johnson threatened the band with legal action concerning use of the name.That matter seems to have been settled.

“When we originally started out, that’s what we were calling it,” Lustig said of the name Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

“Months ago, we started changing all the promo material and everything over because we were running into the problem that people weren’t understanding and were misconstruing what the group exactly was. So we said, ‘Let’s change it to The New Frankie Goes To Hollywood so people will know that this is different.'”

Lustig was surprised when Pollstar informed him that the name Frankie Goes To Hollywood is being used on his company Web site, www.lustigtalent.com, and on his listing in Pollstar’s agency rosters directory. “We’ve been changing it everywhere we can,” he said.

The Boss Booking Agency’s Rob Juarez, who has a package of ’80s acts touring this summer, is concerned that talent buyers and concert-goers may get duped into paying for something they believe is the original act when it’s nothing more than what he calls a tribute band.

He told Pollstar he sent a letter to assure talent buyers — whom he declined to name — that his “Club 80’s The Flashback Tour” acts have at least the original singer.

“I had to get a letter together saying that — of course, we don’t have all the original members — we have the original frontmen,” he said. “I just didn’t want people having doubt in their minds.”

Representatives for The New Frankie Goes To Hollywood Featuring Davey Johnson said confusion is inevitable.

“You can do everything in your power to tell people what the band is, and there are people out there who only hear what they want to hear,” Lustig said. “If they want to interpret what we’re telling them as something else and twist it around, I can’t control that.”