The Bay Area is home to plenty of bands that make their living by paying tribute to their idols and filling a hole for fans of those bands that don’t play here enough.

There are tributes to Tom Petty, Sting and the Police, No Doubt, The Who and scores more. But for two years in a row, SF Weekly readers have voted San Francisco’s U2 cover band Zoo Station as best tribute band.

The nod is not lost on the band, which since 2001 has built its catalog to include more than 140 songs—many of which U2 hasn’t played in decades. It also offers an elaborate stage show with costumes and multimedia that mimics, on a small scale, the real thing.

“It’s really nice to know we can validate what we are doing on small stages, large stages and within the U2 community, bassist Adamesque says. “It’s really amazing how the fans get into it. It’s nice to know the effect U2 has on (the Bay Area) and how well we fit into it.”

A typical Zoo Station show includes hits such as “One,” “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “Pride (In the Name of Love),” as well as lesser-known songs that U2 has never played live.

Zoo Station, named after a song from U2’s 1991 album Achtung Baby, was forged in 2001 after Adamesque (his stage name) posted an ad on Craigslist.

Musicians from across the Bay Area responded and the lineup was set a couple of months later with singer Bonalmost, guitarist The Sledge and drummer Barely Larry.

“We went into this knowing we’d be doing U2 songs exclusively, but the ‘tribute’ aspect of it grew organically from that starting point,” Adamesque said.

From the beginning, the band was run like a democracy, with each member responsible for his share of what now makes them successful. All four continue to work their day jobs.

“We’re lucky enough to have out skillset as individuals [so] things like business, marketing, isual design and fan outreach are all covered,” Barely Larry said.

Being fans of U2, they also knew how to sound like their heroes.

“The music means a lot to us,” the drummer said. “We’re like a fan club with instruments.”

The band carefully studied Bono’s voice and movements, Adam Clayton’s bass strumming, Larry Mullen, Jr.’s drumming and The Edge’s unique guitar sounds.

Zoo Station now uses much of the same music gear as U2, including the science laboratory surrounding the guitarist. In a typical show, The Sledge will use several guitars and dozens of effects.

“I basically learned to play the guitar by listening to The Edge,” The Sledge said. “I’d sit down with [U2’s] The Unforgettable Fire and not only learn how to play the guitar, but also how to play with the delay.”

The band has added many layers of effects over the years.

“It’s all for that moment at a show wehere you hit a familiar hook or riff with the right effects and [see] the looks on people’s faces,” he said.

Bonalmost, meanwhile, has the most challenging task of remembering thousands of lyrics. That’s something Bono doesn’t have to worry about because he uses a teleprompter.

“Some songs come easily; some take a lot to review,” he said. “A lot of them I’ve been singing to myself for years. But there are a few songs … we do every night, [and] I still have to have some mnemonic devices to remember which verse comes first.

“And I mumble a lot,” he said.

What Zoo Station didn’t have, at least at first, was the look and the presentation. But it helped that all four members resemble their counterparts in U2, especially Bonalmost and Barely Larry.

“When we first started, we didn’t have much going on visually,” Barely Larry said. “We were just playing the songs in our street clothes thinking we’d have some laughs and some beers at a local pub.”

Then one night someone handed Bonalmost a pair of “fly” shades, which Bono made famous in the ‘90s. he put them on and the crowd loved it. The band realized they were on to something.

They now go to great lengths to find clothes, sunglasses and gear that resemble U2’s. They have replicated photos of the band for their promotional materials. They traveled to Las Vegas to duplicate U2’s music video for “Desire,” where the band plays while walking around Fremont Street.

In the last couple of years, the band has begun to include video montages, similar to U2’s, in their shows.

“Every time we thought maybe we’d gone too far and people were going to laugh us off the stage, the crowds just got bigger and bigger,” the frontman said. “We made it a policy that our mission was to replicate the live U2 experience as closely as we could.”

But the music still comes first, the band said.

“Everything builds outwards from that,” Bonalmost said. “If we couldn’t pull off the sound, then we’d certainly not be attempting the look.”

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.