LET THE EVENING GO
Caffe Lena to host celebration of Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’ album
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » All are invited to celebrate The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band 50th anniversary this Friday in the Spa City.
With the great success of previous shows celebrating those shaggy-haired kids from across the pond, this year’s Caffe Lena Beatles tribute concert celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the release of Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Hipster hosts Addie Murray and Olin Boyle of Addie & Olin— Unleashed! are putting on a program on Friday at historic folk venue Caffe Lena to commemorate the iconic album, which features hits like “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” “A Day in the Life” and “With a Little Help from My Friends.”
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is an experimental album released in 1967. It went on to win four Grammy Awards in 1968, including Album of the Year.
One half-century later, and Beatles fans still love the music of this fictional Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
In addition to Addie & Olin, special guests at Friday’s local performance will include Big Fez and the Surfmatics, Joel Brown of Chris Brubeck’s Triple Play & Finger Lakes Guitar Quartet and Dave Maswick, of the Stony Creek Band - along with one other surprise appearances. These musicians aim to offer authentic and innovative Beatles renditions with classic vocal harmonies and super tight instrumentation performed with panache and reverence for the music. Though their styles vary, Murray said, “All the members - we all really revere The Beatles.”
Addie & Olin first started these Beatles shows at Caffe Lena in 2014, on the 50th anniversary of the band arriving in America before appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Now in it’s fourth year, the series has created some buzz, attracting Beatles fanatics from all generations to the small downtown venue. “It’s amazing to me the age groups that we get,” Murray said, recalling an adolescent boy at last year’s show that knew every single word. “He sang with every single song,” she said. “It’s kind of amazing how much they live on.”
This year’s show will take place on June 2, the exact date that Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in America in 1967.
Because the entire Sgt. Pepper’s album in only about 40 minutes, some other Beatles songs will be thrown into the mix on Friday as well.
On what inspired the duo to start these events, Boyle said, “We’ve always been inspired by The Beatles.”
From there, “Basically when we did it the first year everybody
had a lot of fun, audience and performers alike, and so we kept doing it again,” he continued.
The hosts expect this 2017 show to be a hit as well. Boyle said that while The Beatles have a lot of great albums, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band gets the most notoriety and his one of his personal favorites, “but I’d say
any album from Rubber Soul through Abbey Road is competitive for one of the greatest albums of all time.”
This special event will take place at at 8 p.m. on Friday at Caffe Lena, located at 47 Phila St. in downtown Saratoga Springs.
More information and tickets to the concert are available online at www. caffelena.org or by calling 800-838-3006.
Tickets cost $22 per person in advance, or $24 for admission at the door.