The Prince Theater celebrates Sgt. Pepper’s Saturday
This June, The Beatles’ landmark LP “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” celebrates its 50th anniversary.
Downtown at the Prince Theater Saturday night, they’re getting a jump on things with a Fab Four tribute band and a screening of the so-bad-it’sgood ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ film.
Part of the XPN Music Film Festival produced by the Philadelphia Film Society, the evening kicks off with a performance from Beatles tribute band Britishmania, who have played for hundreds of thousands at clubs, theaters, colleges, fundraisers and even the legendary Cavern Club in Liverpool, England. The band will highlight ‘Sgt. Pepper’s,’ and also play selections from ‘Revolver,’ and ‘Magical Mystery Tour.’ The band will also be clad full Sgt. Pepper’s regalia.
Following Britishmania, the 1978 cult classic ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ will show on the big screen. Less a cohesive film than a wacky assemblage music and acting notables, it’s one big, trippy music video, over-the-top slapstick and celebrity walk-on. The often derided slice of 70s kitsch certainly isn’t the best cinematic tribute to The Beatles, but it might be the most bizarrely entertaining.
Starring Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees as the titular, satin-jacketed quartet, the movie involves a plot by evil record execs to corrupt the idyllic town of Heartland, but is most memorable for featuring everyone from Aerosmith to Steve Martin covering iconic Beatles tunes. Alice Cooper, Earth Wind & Fire and Billy Preston also make appearances.
Understandably, the Beatles themselves distanced themselves from the film in the wake of the terrible reviews it received. To this date in fact, it’s sitting with a 15 percent rating at the movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. But like all bad things, there’s a segment of the populace that eventually comes to embrace it in all of its offensiveness. At nearly 40 years on, the film is a nice time capsule of what passed for a good idea in the late 70s, and maybe attests to the quality of substances ingested by Hollywood during the era.
For more information on Britishmania performing and the screening of ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,’ visit www.filmphiladelphia.org.