I have never been to a Beatles tribute concert before, but after having seen this one, I feel like I waited for the right bus, and have now seen the definitive version, and need never seen any others. It was probably as close to the real deal as you'll ever get. This was not a Musical - this was most definitely a tribute concert!
The 'fab four' of Emauelle Angeletti (Paul McCartney - even playing left-handed), John Brosnan (George Harrison), Ben Cullingworth (Ringo Starr) and Michael Gagliano (John Lennon) took us through some 40 songs in the 100 minute concert. There was no dialogue, no narrative, no storyline, just back-to-back hits and the audience loved it! Standing in the aisles, dancing in their places, singing along with every song. If proof was ever needed that 'Beatlemania' has never gone away, then this concert simply ticks all of those boxes.
Four 'old style' television screens arranged around the prosc. arch showed actual footage of The Beatles pertinent to the show, as well as period news items, fashion, adverts etc which proved an interesting diversion for us whilst the four had a little vocal rest and changed their costumes. We started at the beginning and their first set was songs that launched their career. We were at The Royal Variety Performance. [ 'She Loves You' / 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand' / 'Yesterday' ] The second set was taken from their tour of the USA and the SHEA stadium concert. ['Twist And Shout' / 'Day Tripper' ]. The third section was their psychedelic years with the iconic Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band costumes [ 'Penny Lane' / 'Strawberry Fields Forever' / 'When I'm 64' ], and the final section before the interval was their hippy years leading up to their final public concert together. [ 'A Day In The Life' / 'Come Together' / 'Revolution' ].
It was here though that the audience was most definitely caught out. After the Sgt. Pepper set most thought that the interval was upon us. The curtain descended and the fab four had taken their bows. The TV screens were still showing news footage and the house lights had not come on, but still, a lot of people left the auditorium for the bar, only to be brought back as soon as the curtain rose again for their fourth set. The reasoning for this I assume is that we had had already over 50 minutes of the first act and the concert seemed to have come to a natural conclusion. It also took a very long time between the end of the third and the start of the fourth sections.
In act 2 we then were treated to one long non-stop concert - an imagined concert. It is October 9 1980, John Lennon's birthday, and the group have come together to perform a special birthday concert. This second half then focused much more on the music of the latter part of their career and the music they made in studio recordings after their famous 1969 rooftop farewell gig. [ 'Because' / 'Got My Mind Set On You' / 'Band On The Run' / 'My Sweet Lord' / 'Imagine' / 'Live And Let Die' / 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' ].
The whole evening finished with two all-time classics and the audience were up again bopping along and willing another encore... 'Let It Be' and 'Hey Jude'.
The Beatles are back, and the four are fab!
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 22/10/18
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