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Posted: May 9th, 2009
Show effects and perfectly performed covers rattle the crowd
by Kenneth Fibbe
My parents have often toiled me with their retrospective bantering: “You should have experienced growing up with the bands in the 60s, like The Beatles. Maybe then you would understand what music can do to people.” And for once in my life I can finally answer back: “I didn’t live then, but I have experienced that music live! And yes, I do understand now.” After walking out of the Beatlemania Now show at the Carnegie Library Music Hall, I felt like I was leaving an Ed Sullivan Show performance by none other than a resurrected version of the greatest selling band of all time. Complete with the loud fan screams, two fingered peace signs, synchronized arm waving, and lovy-dubby group dancing and swinging in an Austin Powers style of groove. This was one big retro party, and the crowd could not get enough it.
We were instantly taken back to The Beatle era, when the large projector positioned behind the band rolled video footages of JFK and his brother Bobby; vintage news footage of young girls telling the camera they would only trade their Beatles tickets for a date with Paul, and nothing less; and the crowd favorite, a sexy 1960s black-and-white Camel Lights commercial that ended with the slogan: “Camels. The number one choice of cigarettes for doctors.” The crowd exploded in laughter, and after the band felt the audience was really feeling that they were actually in the 60s – HERE and NOW – then ‘John’, ‘George’, ‘Paul’, and ‘Ringo’ all entered the stage in their dark suit and skinny-tie late night TV outfits and played “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” over the sound of hundreds of cheering fans. It was then, when the crowd saw and heard how eerily precise this band sounded and looked like The Beatles, that we were all fully emerged in the rock and roll of the 60s. Their state of mind game plan had worked…and rather easily.
The energy BeatleMania Now put into perfecting their on stage motions and singing voices was palpably channeled through songs like “I am the Walrus” and “All You Need is Love.” I have never seen an overwhelming majority of a crowd here get as excited for and fully embracing the music than this crowd did this particular night. You could practically bottle the energy up and sell it as “Beatle Juice” after the show for ten bucks a pop.
When ‘Paul’ played his solo “Yesterday,” the crowd was sobered by not only the feelings invoked from hearing this song live again, but by how perfectly sweet it sounded as it flowed through the library’s massive chamber walls and gracefully surrounded the audience in a gentle cloud of melancholy. Chills went down my right arm. ‘George’ upped the ante when he played “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” alone, and dim-lit on stage. The surreal factor of seeing a man that looks, sounds, and performs exactly like George while he performed his sad tribute with slowly flashed pictures of his guitar covered in roses in the background, well, it swept me away. Chills went down both my arms this time.
After intermission, the crowd was begging for them to come back on stage. And when they did, they talked about a song they had recorded that they hoped every country would broadcast, and they invited the crowd to sing along to “All You Need is Love.” The crowd also clapped to ‘John’s’ command while he sang “I ain’t got nothing but love babe,” to which the audience loudly counter-backed with “Eight days a weeeek!”
As the concert progressed, we too progressed further and further into the timeline of the Beatles era, which the bands helped in achieving by changing their hair and avatar accordingly; their most notable being the colorful Sergeant Pepper’s outfits. You started with the young Beatles, and ended with the aging Beatles. You knew it was coming to end when George joked “Things haven’t been the same since John and Yoko.” Of which the crowd gleefully laughed and applauded. When the concert leaned to closing and it was time for their much desired encore, they asked the audience to stand up. And without further ado, they blasted “Twist and Shout” into the music hall. Instantly couples started winding their bodies down to the ground while swinging their hips and jiving their arms from side to side.
It was all over before I felt it even started: time had not flown by in a concert like that for me in awhile. And I really didn’t want to go back to the future. I had felt a newly found sense of contentment with living in the 60s. Bring on the bell bottoms, curly afros, and circle shades – I am ready. So, I guess my mom was always right when she reminds me: “You were born in the wrong decade.”
Kenneth Fibbe is a graduate print journalism student at Point Park University in Pittsburgh. He has been writing music reviews for collegiate publications since 2006, most frequently as editor-in-chief of The View newspaper at Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia, KY. His first concert was They Might Be Giants in 2000, and he has attended countless shows since then. From Poison and Brad Paisley to Less Than Jake and The Backstreet Boys, Ken has been enjoying and writing about live performances in just about every genre of music imaginable. He also has bachelor degrees in Mathematics and Business Management, and has contributed news stories as a freelance writer for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He can be contacted at kfibbe@pointpark.edu
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