»Celebrating 15 years of the Wychwood Festival
FROM the outset, things were not exactly as expected. In the usual scheme of things, a tribute act’s audience will be made up of fans who were followers of the originals.
The further back in time the original band was at the top of its game, the older the audience will tend to be.
But I was very surprised by the age range for what turned out to be an astoundingly faithful representation of arguably the world’s most influential group.
They certainly had a profound effect on my life during the early 1960s.
This show has been running for an incredible 38 years and for my money, the guys currently performing as John, Paul, George and Ringo have it nailed in terms of appearance, attitude, accent and musical ability.
The humorous touches all work, the simple staging and light show do not detract from the songs and looking around the hall I saw more than a few
young people – maybe 20 or 30 years old – singing, clapping and swaying along to those wonderful songs.
The biggest surprise of the evening was finding myself sitting next to nineyear-old Noah Rawlings who told me he is learning to play Eight Days A Week on guitar and his brother Keith, eight, who is learning to play drums.
No doubt with more than a little influence from their parents, whose own parents were avid fans.
From the opening numbers taken from The Beatles’ early chart years, – Day Tripper, Drive My Car and Norwegian Wood – with every musical phase the band’s costumes reflected each period of the band’s development.
In addition to the core band, credit has to be given to their orchestra – strings, wind instruments and piano – without whom some of the songs wouldn’t have been half as magical, particularly Eleanor Rigby and All You Need Is Love.
The show is living proof The Beatles can still appeal to anyone of any age, 57 years after their first chart entry and that’s something we need to keep alive.