Soapbox

“Rain” on me

Warning Beatles fans: jealousy alert! If you have sharp object nearby or are attempting to complete a complex task, do not read any farther right now.

Can you take me back where I came from….

   I got my first Beatles record when I was probably 6 or 7: Rubber Soul. Oh it didn’t belong to me of course. It belonged to my sister Barbara, and I touched it under penalty of painful death. (Come to think of it, I still touch her stuff under penalty of death… but that’s another story) I remember sitting on the floor of the living room in our house on Shannon Ave. between the bookcase and the big rocking chair. Barbara would listen to it with the headphones on and a blanket over her head (no doubt to block out all her annoying little siblings) but she played it so loudly and the record player was so primative that if you sat close to it, you could hear the music bleed out, very softly. I sat with the album cover in my hands and memorized the words to each song and the sound of each voice: Rubber Soul lists the lead and back-up singer on each song. At age 7 I could tell the difference between Paul’s voice and John’s singing harmony and spent hours pouring over the cover of Rubber Soul and  Revolver  in fascination.

     Up until that time my exposure to music (other than the old Irish maiming ballads I learned at my aunt’s knee) was limited to the classical music my mother listened to on the radio and a group called "The Womenfolk" who performed at downtown Lazarus (big venue, huh?) when I was 5 and my mom bought me their record. Listening to the Beatles, particularly Rubber Soul and Revolver with their harmonies, varied subject matter and really innovative musical expression,  opened up a whole world for me. I used to sit and listen and get pictures in my head– like getting high without leaving the earth.

    The first album of any kind that I bought myself was Yesterday and Today  and then Abbey Road . After that I went back and collected the earlier Beatles albums and filled in the gaps. All this on a babysitter’s wages of 50 cents an hour. But it was the Beatles! I recall watching Paul McCartney accept the Grammy for "Let it Be" in 1970 and thinking "Oh please- let them get back together!! I’ve only just found them- and now they’re done?! That’s so unfair!!’
   Except they were the Beatles, and they’ll never be done.

    Last night I went to the Beatles tribute concert, "Rain"  at the Palace theatre because my wonderful husband, no huge fan of the Beatles himself, knew it would make me happy. And oh, it did!

    So what does one wear to a "Beatle-ish" concert? On the one hand, it’s at the Palace. On the other hand… it’s the Beatles! I settled on my "All You Need is Love" t-shirt over a nice pair of slacks and of course carried my "It’s All About Paul" purse. I had a woman chase me down the aisle to ask where I got it.  Another stopped me on the way to the restroom to ask. So sorry to tell them they can’t be had any longer. (I guess that makes me special, huh?)
   Before the show I heard a man remark to his companion: "Look at this place! All these people are over 60!"  Wrong! Plenty of aging hippies there, for sure, but lots of "youngsters" in their 30’s and more than a few teenagers, which was very cool. I would absolutely have taken Steve if he was around.

    As it was getting close to time for the show to start they had a Beatles trivia quiz up on these giant screens on either side of the stage. First question: 
Which Beatle married last?
     I didn’t even bother to say it aloud- I mean, come on, right? Challenge me here, why don’t you?  Yet a groan went up from the audience when the answer was posted. Rookies! Lightweights! You call yourselves Beatles fans? OK, I did miss one question: what does John actually say at the end of "Strawberry Fields?" Turns out the answer is "Cranberry sauce".

    So finally, after some footage of kids "rocking around the clock"  showing styles and hairdos in ’63 and ’64 to make sure we all had our heads firmly in the past, on the screen an Ed Sullivan imitator told us what a "really big shew" we were about to see … and then the curtains parted, the lights came up, silhouetting those familiar figures… the opening notes of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" were heard… and honestly, Ted put his hand on my shoulder to hold me in my seat, I was bouncing up and down so high!  Oh my God! It’s almost really them!! 
The place went nuts.

    Was this even a little bit what it was like to really see the Beatles in those early days? I can never laugh again at the crying girls in those movies. Of course I neither wept nor hyperventilated, but I would have really embarrassed myself… if most of the crowd wasn’t behaving the same way I was.  The only ones not on their feet for half the show were the ones too old to stand that long. 

    WHAT FUN!! There they were in their little Beatles suits, with Beatles haircuts, mugging in exactly the same way the Beatles did… "Paul" kind of putting his knees together and waggling his head, "John" with the legs apart stance… and of course the Paul guy does McCartney way better than McCartney could these days. The set looked like a TV studio, complete with "Applause" signs and the kind of silly "hip" decorations they did for the Sullivan show.
   The players in this show are the same guys who were in the Broadway show "Beatlemania" and they’ve been playing together for 20 years. They do this show like a series of actual Beatles concerts, complete with exact replicas of the costumes they wore.

     The musicianship was amazing. The guy who was "George" totally rocked on lead guitar. Every note, every drum lick, every harmony and "Yeah yeah yeah"  was exactly like the ones I memorized from behind the rocking chair so many years ago. They had a 5th guy in the background on synthesizer for the later songs, because of course they were all originally done in the studio. for the second "set" they put on Shea stadium outfits and on the giant screens had footage of the crowd reaction: people fainting and getting hauled away by the cops, etc. (Ted thought it was a hoot- he’s never seen Shea Stadium. Imagine!) In between sets as they changed clothes, hair, etc they just had cool footage on those screens: news reels and commercials from the 60’s to sort of set the scene culturally, and played clips of other popular music from the year they were moving into, which the crowd sang along with as loudly as with the Beatles stuff. The biggest crowd response I noticed to this recorded music was to "Stop children, what’s that sound- everybody look what’s going down". Great song, but maybe it also touched a nerve, with today’s political climate.

     When they sang "I saw her Standing There" I remembered listening to that record over and over in my room when I was "just 17… and you know what I mean" and imagining Paul was singing it to me… imagining that some day someone might ever feel that way about me… "John" almost pulled the house down on "Twist and Shout"- he couldn’t make it quite as raw as the original since he still had 2/3 of the show to get through, but he had the whole crowd spilling out into the aisles just roaring along and dancing. The Sargent Pepper set was fun and very psychedelic. 
     I think the part I liked the best was their "Abbey Road" set. There were a lot of good rockers in that.  "Revolution" was another song that was so excellent and had the audience so hyped up, I bet you could hear the theatre from a block away.

    "Imagine" was the first encore, with a lovely little graphic on the screen of Lennon-like drawings drawing themselves across the screen with words like "Peace" and "Brotherhood" and thousands of hands waving with the peace symbol, and missing John Lennon.  Of course "Hey Jude" was the last encore… "Paul" didn’t even really sing that much. He played the piano and everyone had their arms in the air, singing "na, na na nananana…."

    So then we went to the parking garage and sat there for like 20 minutes waiting for the traffic to let us out, but it was cool because someone had a Beatles CD playing and just blasted it… lots of people had their car windows down, in spite of the cold, to hear it.

     My favorite moment of the night was on my way for a drink of water at intermission when I heard 2 guys behind me talking.
    "Man, that music started, and it just really took me back!" one guy said.  "And the next thing I knew I was thinking about my 10th grade girlfriend, and I thought, Man, I’ve gotta call her…. and apologize..!"

 It just seemed to fit with the way I felt, screaming at a fake Beatles concert: old and young and wise and very, very silly at the same time. 

Can you take me back where I came from?
Can you take me back?
Can you take me back where I came from
Brother, can you take me back…..