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“Classical Mystery Tour” and WSO - all you need is the (Beatles) music
SLIDE SHOW
American composer and band leader Duke Ellington famously said there are only two kinds of music, good music and the other kind, and Thursday night’s Beatles tribute with the Classical Mystery Tour and the Waco Symphony Orchestra had plenty of the former.
But then, it’s hard to argue with a show that had a nearly full Waco Hall on its feet and dancing — well, waving arms and torsos — to an encore of “Twist and Shout,” even if that was one of the evening’s rare songs that the Beatles didn’t write.
The Beatles tribute band Classical Mystery Tour — Tony Kishman as Paul McCartney, Jim Owen as John Lennon, John Brosnan as George Harrison and Chris Camilleri as Ringo Starr — cruised through two hours of nearly pitch-perfect renditions of the British pop-rock band’s greatest hits.
Close behind was the Waco Symphony Orchestra, led by Music Director Stephen Heyde, who set the evening’s light-hearted tone by conducting an opening Beatles medley in a “mop-top” wig.
“Mop-top” — there’s a phrase that dates this Baby Boomer in the Age of Swiffer.
Skimming through the Beatles timeline in Mark Whitney’s program notes, I found this intriguing factoid: The band’s last live concert was in San Francisco in August, 1966 - which means it’s highly unlikely anyone in the hall Thursday night had ever seen a Beatles concert in person to compare.
With no light show, choreography or long, extended band jams — my, how rock concerts have changed over four decades — the foursome Classical Mystery Tour relied on spot-on recreations of Beatles songs, from harmonies, close-enough British accents, tight instrumentation and orchestral arrangements that replicated studio orchestrations, only louder and live.
The WSO not only handled their arrangement’s swelling string lines and numerous brass parts — kudos to the piccolo trumpet solo on “Penny Lane,” and my apologies for not having the player’s name at hand - but members even added the audience noises and applause heard on several Sgt. Pepper’s tracks.
The concert offered 20 Beatles hits — 26 if one counts the orchestral medley kicking off the show — plus McCartney’s “Live and Let Die,” Lennon’s “Imagine” and Phil Medley/Bert Russell’s “Twist and Shout.”
Classic stuff, all: “She Loves You,” “A Hard Day’s Night,” “Yesterday” (nice acoustic solo by Kishman), “All You Need Is Love,” “Something,” “Hey Jude,” “A Little Help From My Friends,” “Ob-la Di, Ob-la Da,” “Yellow Submarine,” “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “Carry That Weight,” “Long and Winding Road,” “Magical Mystery Tour,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “Got To Get You Into My Life” and more, but you get the point.
In the end, it was all about the music, that music. More than 40 years after the Beatles enchanted their Baby Boomer peers, their songs still can move audiences old and young.
Though Owen/Lennon quipped, “if you remember the ’60s, you’re probably in your 60s” early in the concert, that 60s crowd likely was thinking “I told you so” as they watched a younger generation enjoying a Beatles concert that never existed.
If Lennon and Harrison were still alive, would we be seeing a Beatles reunion tour today? Would they be playing Vegas? Or Branson? That’s a sobering thought, although the ability of the Rolling Stones and McCartney to pull off solid, credible tours even now makes one believe that it wouldn’t have been an embarrassment.
What we have now is the music - good music - and perhaps that’s enough.
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