Lez Zeppelin, Vag Halen and AC/DShe - meet the all-female tribute bands Lez Zeppelin have recorded Led Zep songs, even using the same vintage equipment as their heroes did back in the late 60s. Vag Halen! The names alone are enough to make you pay attention - but that's only the start of it. All-female tribute bands may have traditionally provoked guffaws in the exclusionary, testosterone-fuelled world of budget rock, but these days they are increasingly earning plaudits on the homage scene. Lez Zeppelin were the first tribute band (of any gender) to perform at Download festival, and in June they play a show at the Garage in London. To thrive in this niche industry is no small feat, and these women are next-level virtuosos who refused to hang up their six-strings in frustration when tasked with mastering Jimmy Page's trickiest solos. They have note-perfect guitar skills, loyal audiences and an encyclopaedic knowledge of alpha-male rock that could put even the most ardent, B-side-collecting fanboys to shame. For these ladies, the tribute game is more than hero worship: it's about a riff-perfecting devotion to rock that exceeds imitation. Throw up those horns and watch them wail! View here Lez have been rocking since 2004 and are considered queens of the all-female homage game. They have recorded full-length albums with former Led Zeppelin engineers, doing so with a diehard devotion that saw them tracking down the same (now vintage) equipment employed by LZ in 1968, to make their second album, Lez Zeppelin I. They can pull off the theremin solo on Whole Lotta Love with the skilful, preening show (wo) manship of true pros, but don't call them a tribute act: they prefer to think of themselves as a "she-incarnation" of rock's most hallowed foursome. Guitarist D Mercedes spent two years choogling in the all-female Mötley Crüe tribute band Girls Girls Girls! before beginning this homage act in 2009, with co-founder and NYC punk legend Gyda Gash. Priestess match their heroes riff for epic riff, and have the official endorsement of follically challenged rock god Rob Halford himself. As journalist Laina Dawes has investigated in her 2012 book What Are You Doing Here?, women of colour have been especially marginalised by heavy metal's hyper-masculine, white-dude culture. Nevertheless, Priestess front-woman MilitiA - who writes for AFROPUNK.com and has fronted Dee "Twisted Sister" Snider's rock opera, Van Helsing's Curse - is a charismatic, badass vocalist capable of commanding any stage. Thought feminist rockers were all po-faced, prudish killjoys? Check out Vag Halen and consider yourself schooled. Despite their Eddie V-referencing moniker, this queer, feminist troupe from Toronto are too capricious to pledge allegiance to any one, specific band of yore, and "muff dive" (rather than Jump) into a repertoire of cock-rock classics at their rowdy, lesbian-populated shows, while lascivious, semi-nude frontwoman Vanessa Dunn delivers rock's most revered, straight-man standards with sapphic gusto; you will never listen to that chorus on Clapton's Leila in the same way again. This smart Philadelphia quartet originally started out as Queen Diamond, a King Diamond tribute act, but a passion for 80s thrash metal saw them evolving into a whiplash-inducing Metallica tribute, fronted by dexterous shredder Gina Gleason. Gleason could beat James Hetfield in a growl-off, and with fret skills to match a young Jennifer Batten, she was a natural choice for Cirque du Soleil's Michael Jackson ONE production. Fans worried they will be subjected to numbers from the much-maligned St Anger album - or worse, that Lou Reed collaboration Lulu - are in safe hands at a Misstallica show: they have a strict first-four-albums-only policy and refuse to play anything Ulrich and co recorded after 1988's ... And Justice For All. Iron Maidens are a quintet of heavy-metal femmes hailing from Los Angeles. Their credo? Bring your daughters to the slaughter, of course. Fronted by Kirsten "Bruce Chickinson" Rosenberg and powered by Courtney "Adriana Smith" Cox and Nita "Mega Murray" Strauss's duelling guitars, the band have opened for the mighty Kiss, played a storming rendition of The Trooper to a 40,000-strong audience at Venezuela's heavy metal Gillmanfest and picked up a clutch of industry accolades, including wins at the LA music awards. San Francisco's AC/DShe are out to shake you all night long. They have been around since 1997, honing AC/DC's Bon Scott-era oeuvre with a skill that has earned them support slots for Pat Benatar, Cheap Trick and Girlschool. Angus Young's schoolboy uniform is iconic garb in the world of rock apparel, but AC/DShe's lead axewoman Pamela Ausejo sports that blazer-and-shorts combo with just as much finesse, and can match Young's wild solos note for note to boot. "Our ultimate goal," says vocalist Amy Ward - who boasts an uncannily Scott-like timbre and gargantuan lungpower - "is to spread the gospel of AC/DC." For those about to rock to AC/DShe, we salute you. The Ramonas are Cloey, Margy, Rohnny & Pee Pee Ramona, London's all-gal answer to punk's most revered and influential forefathers. The band began in 2004 at the behest of Clare Pproduct (of UK glam rock band AntiProduct), who boasts the distinction of playing bass in Marky Ramone's Blitzkrieg. They turned out a strong set at Manchester's Mockfest earlier this month and are on the line-up for Blackpool Rebellion festival this August.