The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Beatles in Cleveland (sort of)
1964 The Tribute has earned kudos for take on the Fab Four
Everybody’s got a Beatles story.
Mark Benson, who plays John Lennon in 1964 The Tribute, hears plenty of them.
“I was sitting on a plane, with Dickey Betts of the Allman Brothers (Band) and we got talking about what we do. And he said, ‘I’ll never forget the first time I heard that Beatles song ‘She Loves You.’ I was walking down the street in Oklahoma, and this woman pulled up to a stop light in a convertible and I heard it playing on her radio. I thought, ‘I love that sound. What is that sound?’ The light turned green, and she started to go and I started running and then she stopped at the next light and I kind of caught up to her. Then, by three or four blocks, I had heard most of the song.’”
Benson laughs, “The visual of that kid running alongside a car so he could hear this song is just beautiful.”
Betts’ story is just an example of the outpouring of anecdotes and feedback Benson gets all the time. Playing a rock star makes you a rock star in your own right. And being a fake Lennon? (Or a “Fennon,” if you will.) It gives you permission to be a “smart aleck,” as Benson puts it.
“And I’m getting paid for it.” he said. “It’s a pretty good job actually.”
There are plenty of Beatle acts out there. But 1964 is hailed as “the best” by some and it’s not hard to see why.
The group’s narrative differs because it’s focused solely on the touring years. When the gang started the group in the 1980s, there wasn’t much competition, but still they picked a lane and perfected it.
“We wanted to do more of a Beatles concert rather than a Beatles story. We were more concerned with wanting to show you [the audience] that if you were lining up to get a ticket to see the Beatles when they were touring from ’63-’66, this is what you would have seen.”
Of course, what you actually would have seen at a Beatles show was absolute chaos.
The Beatles graced Cleveland’s soil twice, once in ’64 and again in ’66. Both times left the city spinning. Police struggled to control the crowd in the ’66 show, and the Beatleheads managed to stampede a 4-foot security fence during “Day Tripper,” mobbing the field at the Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The band had to hit the pause button on the performance for about 30 minutes until the crowd settled down.
It was certainly a time no one — not the Beatles, the promoters or the police — was prepared for. Stadium shows were in their infancy, and the Beatles were guinea pigs for navigating these new terrains.
We’re used to a Billy Joel or a U2 breezing through Cleveland for a stadium show like it’s child’s play, but we rarely consider where it all began.
“You really have to credit the Beatles for all of the light shows and sound system and everything [of current day] because before the Beatles started playing stadiums, only sporting events were in stadiums,” Benson said.
Ron Howard’s Grammy Award-winning documentary “The Beatles: Eight Days a Week” shows the boys having to perform through tiny telephonepole speakers at these stadiums, attempting to shout their hits through the earsplitting screams of hysterical fans. It’s no wonder they pulled the plug on the touring years so early in their development.
But tribute bands such as 1964 keep those memories alive and on a much more maintainable scale.
“This music unites everyone,” Benson says. “There’s no young and old or rich and poor or racial division — it’s just Beatle fans. It seems to still have that magic to it.”
That magic is a two-way street. Not only is the band playing the role of the Liverpool lads, but Benson says the audience plays its part, too.
“We get people that are fake-screaming and fakefainting, and their friend catches them while they fall over.”
Perhaps some of the strongest feedback comes from fans who actually have seen the Beatles live.
“One of the times we played Carnegie Hall, we did a meet-and-greet after. This guy comes through the line to my bass player. He lays down this little oval brass piece with a number etched into it. He said, ‘I want you to have this. I was here in 1964, and I saw the Beatles. I ripped that off my chair. I’ve had this all this time, and I want you to have it. This show is amazing.’ We said, ‘You don’t have to do this.’ And he said, ‘No, I want you to have that. I’ve had it for a long time. I could actually hear the Beatles tonight.’”
These shows are also serve as hallmark moments between generations. Benson recalls a grandfather he met after a show who opened up about him and his 7-year-old grandson: ‘“We both just finished playing, ‘The Beatles Rock Band’ game on the computer before we came to the show tonight, and he was so excited. I could have never ever imagined that music I grew up with would be something I could bond with my grandson over.”’
Benson says, “So if you ask, ‘Do you think the music will live on?’ That story is such a good example of how it will.”