Review: 'RAIN: A TRIBUTE TO THE BEATLES' at The Music Center At Strathmore

Partway through the first set of "Rain's" show at Strathmore on March 13, Paul Curatolo, as Paul McCartney, took the stage for a solo acoustic performance of "Yesterday."  The slow, somber ballad, which first appeared on the album "Help!" has become a signature tune of McCartney's and the band itself. According to McCartney, the melody came to him in a dream. (Would it have had the same impact had McCartney used the lyrics that first came to him: "Scrambled eggs/oh, baby I love your legs/not as much as I love scrambled eggs?" One thinks not.) The song is one of the most-covered in history, with at least 2,200 professionally recorded renditions, according to Wikipedia. 

"Yesterday," of course, is written from the perspective of a man lamenting his lover's departure, and longing for the time they spent together. But through the years, I would say it has come to express the sentiments many Beatles fans have towards the years when the band was together. The 1960s represent a time of love, possibilities innocence. Granted, I am an outside observer (I was born in 1982) but I've come to enjoy the band a great deal myself. (I've seen both living members in concert.)  and this fits what I have read and heard from those who were there. The fact that the Las Vegas Beatles tribute band and Danny Boyle's 2019 fantasy film that imagines  a world where the band never formed take "Yesterday" as their title further supports my claim. The film "Field of Dreams" holds a special place in my family, and watching the baby boomers in the audience take their seats at Strathmore brought to mind the recently-departed James Earl Jones' iconic monologue: "The memories will be so thick, they'll have to brush them away from their faces."

And they got a good show.  The band, Curatolo, Steve Landes as John, Alastar McNeil as George, Dylan Verge as Ringo, along with keyboardist and percussionist Chris Smallwood, provided energetic renditions of various Beatles standards. The show began with hits from the band's early years, with the members dressed in the suits and ties they wore on their famed appearance on the "Ed Sullivan Show." The audience was invited to their feet for "Twist and Shout" and "She Loves You."  Landes sang a particularly haunting rendition of "In My Life," with Smallwood playing the iconic piano solo played by George Martin in the original recording.

After intermission, the band performed songs from the Beatles' later, more experimental and political years. The band, of course, stopped touring after their concert in Candlestick Park in late of August of 1966, and this section of the concert offered a speculative look at what live performances of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Band" tracks might have looked like. The entire chamber sang along with  Verge on "With a Little Help From My Friends."

The performance was supplemented by images projected onto the rear of the screen showing moments from the band's Sullivan perofrmances, news conferences and clips, and commercials of the time. (I'd forgotten that the Flintstones were briefly cigarette pitchmen.)  The visual effects in the latter half of the concert included iscenes from the animated "Yellow Submarine" film and psychedelic light shows accompanying the songs. (This is an act not recommended for epileptics.)

There was a feeling of bittersweet joy as we filed out onto Tuckerman Lane. "It's the greatest music ever," said an older man with whom I shared the parking lot elevator. That may be debatable, but at any rate, the concert was a pleasant trip...to yesterday.