07/28/10
by Chris Burland
To celebrate my 50th birthday last night, my wife and I went to see
Rain: A Tribute To The Beatles at Toronto's CANON Theatre. While I
was initially skeptical about the prospect, I had taken several
people's secondhand word that it was just like seeing the real thing.
So I ponied up the cash and purchased a couple of tickets in the left
orchestra.
The live performance promised to fully recreate The Beatles' music
and visual images, and included a musical director/fifth member to
fill in the sound and instruments the four members of Rain didn't
perform (the strings and brass from the Sgt. Pepper era and beyond).
The actual show featured the use of film clips projected on two large
pseudo-televisions flanking the stage accompanied by soundtrack that
was a medley of '60s music to establish the mood and context of the
band's original performance. This staging technique allowed for the
band's costume changes while keeping the two-hour show moving effectively.
The material performed was presented in chronological order (outside
of a short retrospective acoustic set in the second half) and
focussed on those visual images that were universally remembered by
even the most casual Beatles fan. These include the February 1964
appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show including "I Wanna Hold Your Hand"
and "All My Loving," a scene from A Hard Days Night, their Shea
Stadium performance and later their 1969 live performance on the roof
of the Apple Records headquarters from the Let It Be film. The first
half ended with the Rain's tribute to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts
Club Band, beginning with the title tack and ending the first half
with a stirring rendition of "A Day In The Life", the arguably The
Beatles' greatest musical triumph. The song's sustained crescendo
effectively led to the intermission.
Outside of the Apple roof appearance, the second half of the show was
less driven by the known visuals. It opened with performance of
"Hello Goodbye" and "I Am The Walrus," then stepped out of the
chronological order to perform a trio of acoustic numbers from the
band's mid-period; "Girl", "We Can Work It Out" and "Blackbird,"
which kind let the cat out of the bag about "Paul McCartney's" performance.
As we all know, McCartney is left-handed. "Paul" appeared on stage
with a left-handed bass, and at times it didn't seem he was fully
performing all of the notes. When we was handed his acoustic guitar
to perform McCartney's "Blackbird," he played it right-handed. So was
he playing the bass left-handed the rest of the show... curious minds
want to know why!
There was a enthusiastic audience involvement, including freaked out
screaming on command, and a sweet full-on sing along with
"Yesterday," which left me teary-eyed. (Hearing some 2,000 people
singing along to this classic ballad was the most heartfelt and
memorable moment during the performance.) The biggest audience
response in the second half were to the superb renditions of a couple
of rockers, George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and John
Lennon's "Come Together." Both featured spot-on guitar solos from the band.
The show ended oddly with Lennon's solo "Give Peace A Chance"
segueing into the Abbey Road's "The End" before an encore of
McCartney's two monster anthems, "Let It Be" and "Hey Jude." The
former almost brought me to the same emotional level as "Yesterday,"
and the latter was a fitting end to a remarkably memorable performance.
.
1 comments:
Great post! Rain does an awesome job.
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