Rain brings the Beatles Live experience to Sacramento
A Review by Ken Kiunke
Staff Writer
When I was 10 years old, a couple of things happened that would
change my life. Digging in a neighbor's trash, I found an old
paperback copy of Hunter Davies 1968 biography of the Beatles, and
I saw the animated film “Yellow Submarine” on TV. I soon acquired
my own Sergeant Pepper record album, and began a lifelong love of
the Beatles. My Beatles record collection grew to completeness
(though at least half were used copies from our local record store)
and my library of Beatle books began to grow as well. By high
school I was known to all my friends as the Beatles expert. Though
I joined them in following Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Yes, and a
whole host of rock music, it was always John, Paul, George and
Ringo who ruled my musical universe. Of course, this all began in
1971, and by then there was no Beatles band in the world, only the
recordings and individual members all pursuing their own solo
careers.
One thing I always wondered is if the Beatles had remained together
and resumed playing live concerts into the 1970's, as their closest
rivals, the Rolling Stones, had done, what would it have been like?
The early 60's Beatle shows were so hindered by the poor sound
equipment and the constant chaos surrounding them, with screaming
fans, tight security and general pandemonium, that arguably the
greatest rock band ever never really put on any great concerts.
Even at their best, the shows were only about 30 minutes long, and
the Beatles just did their best to sing and play a few hits and get
out of the theater alive. Had they not quit performing live in
1966, and not broken up in 1970, they could have played some great
two hour concerts without all the 60's mania, and with the superior
sound systems that became available - the kind of show that all
four Beatles performed as solo artists with great success,
especially Paul McCartney and Wings. I hoped to get my answer as
the California Musical Theater and Broadway Sacramento presented
“Rain – A Tribute To The Beatles” which played December 27th to
January 1st at the Community Theater.
In 1977 the musical show “Beatlemania” was as the first serious
attempt to recreate and expand on the experience of seeing the
Beatles live. More than just playing the Beatles songs, they were
the first to attempt to look and sound just like the Beatles, using
instruments, makeup, clothes and sets to faithfully recreate the
experience of seeing a real Beatles show. This show eventually
merged with “Reign”, a band that played Beatles songs, to become
“Rain”, an offshoot of Beatlemania, with many of the same
performers, and on to today's “Rain – A Tribute To The Beatles”
Broadway show.
Of course there are now thousands of tribute bands
out there now for just about any popular band that existed, or even
still does exist. Sacramento area fans can regularly see “Stealin'
Dan”, “Chicago Tribute Authority”, “Petty Theft” and many others.
What these bands bring to their audience is the fairly authentic
sound of the music with the immediacy of a live setting rather than
recordings and videos, and many sound just as good, or better, than
the now aging originals. But like “Rain”, what most of the Beatles
tribute bands do (along with the thousands of Elvis impersonators)
is to try to recreate the entire look and feel of the band, ranging
anywhere from four guys in gray collarless jackets with Beatle
bangs and boots, to a full multimedia spectacular, with multiple
costume and makeup changes, familiar stage patter and antics,
simulating the entire Beatles career, and acting out the parts of
John, Paul, George and Ringo. The “Fab Four” do a great job at
this, appearing annually at the California State Fair and other
venues. But perhaps because of the high production values, and the
experience of the performers and producers, “Rain” is the high
water mark of Beatles tributes. Photo:
Joey Curtolo as Paul
But do they actually
recreate the experience of seeing the Beatles in a modern live
show? The answer is an unequivocal yes and no. The Rain cast of
Joey Curtolo as Paul, Steve Landes as John, Joe Bithorn as George,
and Ralph Castelli as Ringo sang, played and acted their parts
perfectly. Curtolo was friendly, engaging, and worked the audience
just as McCartney did, and still does. Landes didn't say as much as
Lennon usually did, but he acted the fool with appropriate lack of
dignity and aplomb. Bithorn had his George Harrison “guitar dance”
down pat, and Castelli as Ringo was the cheerful cutup behind the
drum kit. They had the instrumental and vocal parts down nearly
perfect, especially the three part harmonies John, Paul and George
were so good at. But of course it was not like seeing a real
Beatles concert, because of the costume and make up changes, it was
like seeing five shorter concerts. So for this show, the question
of what it would have been like if the Beatles had continued to
perform went unanswered. (But Rain does sell an intriguing CD of a
theoretical 1980 reunion concert, which would be interesting to see
performed live.) Photo: Ralph Castelli as
Ringo
The concert naturally opened with the
1964 Beatles doing the hits. Standouts were All My Loving, A
Hard Days Night, and This Boy, where Landes (John) got a
round of applause for his Smokey Robinson style solo vocal in the
middle of the great three part harmonies. Bithorn (George) had his
only lead vocal on I'm Happy Just To Dance With You, a
Lennon/McCartney song written for George for the 'Hard Days Night'
album. This opening set was a great re-creation, and probably an
improvement on a real 1964 concert since the teenage girls from
1964 did far less screaming and fainting, now that they are in
their 60's. (A majority of the audience were in their teens in the
1960's, so I am sure there were some former screamers in
attendance.) Photo: Steve Landes as John
The next set was a 1965 Shea stadium concert tribute, though they
did very little from the actual Shea concert – only Twist And
Shout and I Feel Fine, missing out on the chance to
recreate some of the best moments from that actual show – John and
Paul's sharing the mic singing Baby's In Black, and Paul's
I'm Down, where John goes somewhat mad while George and Paul
crack up just watching him. But like the 1964 set, the quality of
this performance was doubtlessly far superior, as the original used
only the stadium's announcement sound system to broadcast the
sound, and the Beatles did their best just to stay together amid
the noise and pandemonium. It was shows like this one that
convinced them that they were wasting their time trying to do
concerts, and they quit live shows altogether the next year.
The only weak spot in this set for me was Curtolo (Paul)'s solo
performance of Yesterday. Not only have we all heard this
song about a million times, but he turned it into an audience
sing-a-long, which is a pet peeve of mine. I want to hear the band
perform the music, not the audience around me. But there is
probably a law written somewhere that all Beatles tributes must
include Yesterday. (Perhaps leaving it out would have caused
riots and police action...) Rain finished the set strong with
Day Tripper, another highlight of the show featuring that great
guitar riff and fantastic vocals.
The next set featured the boys in their iconic Sergeant Pepper
uniforms, and opened with the Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts
Club Band and Castelli (Ringo)'s one lead vocal, With A
Little Help From My Friends. This was also the opening of the
real fantasy part of the show, since the Beatles never actually
performed these songs in concert. And it was also the introduction
of the “fifth Beatle” to the stage, as keyboardist Mark Beyer
joined them to help fill in the more complicated sounds featured in
the later Beatles records. A purist could argue that this is
cheating - that the Beatles were always a four-piece band. In fact,
rival tribute band “The Fab Four” does manage to perform many of
these songs with just the four of them, with John and George taking
turns on a synthesizer to fill in. However, I did not have a
problem with it, as the Beatles themselves added Billy Preston to
their lineup for much of the 'Let It Be' album, and on “stage” at
the closest thing to a final concert the Beatles performed, on the
rooftop of the Apple building. And of course the real “fifth
Beatle”, George Martin, performed on many of their recordings,
especially in the later years. So it seems unlikely that if they
had continued performing live, they would not have had at least one
additional musician on stage.
During the Sergeant Pepper set I was reminded what a great drummer
Ringo was. He often took a bad rap for his skills – John Lennon was
once asked if Ringo was the best drummer in rock and roll, and he
replied that he wasn't even the best drummer in the Beatles, a
sarcastic remark touching on Paul's seeming ability to play
anything better than his band mates. True, Ringo did not have the
technical chops of the Stones' Charlie Watts, or the manic fluidity
of the Who's Keith Moon, but he was an innovative musical drummer.
Two of the songs on the Pepper set particularly showed off Ringo's
contributions – A Day In The Life and Strawberry Fields
Forever would not be the great songs they were without his
drumming. And Ralph Castelli did a great job, even simulating the
backwards cymbal effects from Strawberry Fields. (It would
have been nice to hear Rain do Rain, the Lennon song the
group is named for, which also features some of Ringo's best
drumming and Paul's innovative bass, but it was relegated to the
walk off music as the audience filed out.)
Following intermission, it was time for the 1968 Beatles, and they
opened with two songs that would have fit just as well in the Sgt.
Pepper set – Hello Goodbye (actually the only song the
Beatles ever performed wearing their Sgt. Pepper gear) and I Am
The Walrus, a great way to get the crowd back in after the
break. But then they did something unique - they brought out stools
and did an acoustic set featuring songs from '65 to '68. John's
In My Life was a particular highlight, along with a version of
Paul's I've Just Seen A Face performed in bluegrass style,
and featuring a great acoustic guitar solo by Joe Bithorn that I've
never seen George Harrison come close to doing. This mini-set was
interesting because it did touch lightly on the concept of the
mature Beatles performing a concert of their older music.
Finally, the group finished as the 1969 Beatles, and after Come
Together and Get Back they launched into a screaming
Revolution that got the crowd (mostly) on their feet, and
finished with The End, the climax of the Beatles last
recorded album. Although they did a great job on that song, it was
something of a missed opportunity. One of the great moments in
Beatle history is their performance of The End. Beginning
with Ringo's only real drum solo, the song progresses into a 3-way
guitar solo featuring Paul, George and John trading licks, and
Beatle fans could picture the three of them in the studio making
that magic together. Even though the Beatles by then were often
bickering, and broke up after it was recorded, Abbey Road was an
album where you could feel them working together and making
something that would send them off in style. The End was the
ultimate expression of that feeling. Though Joe Bithorn recreated
the three parts flawlessly, it would have been great to see the
three of them doing it together.
The Encore set opened with John's solo song, Give Peace A Chance,
a bit of a surprise, since everyone probably expected Imagine.
They finished up with Let It Be, and to no one's surprise,
Hey Jude, which Paul McCartney has taken to using himself as
his final encore song. Overall, Rain did a fantastic job looking
and sounding like the Beatles, and they put on a fantastic show.
The visuals and projected images were nice additions. Careful
observations revealed the Rain cast themselves posing in familiar
Beatles settings, such as the Abbey Road crosswalk (though with a
modern VW Beetle subbing for the 1960's version on the album
cover.)
They did a total of 31 songs, so it is really hard to complain
about anything they left out, but I would have liked to have seen a
few less obvious choices, since they did stick mostly to the big
hits. Ticket To Ride from Help, And Your Bird Can Sing
from Revolver and Two Of Us from Let It Be would have added
a lot for me. And of course the most glaring omission was the lack
of any George Harrison written Beatles songs. According to Mark
Lewis, the founder and manager of Rain, “for some unknown reason we
were unable to secure the Grand Rights to the George Harrison
catalog.... We hope to eventually get the Rights so we can give
George his well deserved spots in our show”. If I Needed
Someone, Taxman, Here Comes The Sun and of course Something
would have all added greatly to the concert. But as the sold-out
shows attest, Sacramento loves the Beatles, and Rain
delivered. Now it's time to get out the Beatles Rock Band game and
do my own tribute...
For more information on any upcoming Sacramento Community Center
Theater shows, or for basic information, call (916)446-5880 or
visit their website at
www.californiamusicaltheater.com
Community Center Theater Box Office
for single-show tickets:
1301 L Street, Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 808-5181
Wells Fargo Pavilion Box Office for single-show and season tickets:
1419 H Street, Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 557-1999,
(916) 557-1198 | group of 12 or more. FAX (916) 557-2775
Single show tickets for Broadway Sacramento presentations are
available online through services provided by going online to:
www.Tickets.com
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