Front Page > Beatles NewsUS premiere of 4 Lads From Liverpool rocks San Francisco
by Katie Hickox
The US premiere of "4 Lads from Liverpool," a musical tribute to the Beatles, opened Friday night at the Marines Memorial Theater in San Francisco to an enthusiastic audience.
4 Lads from Liverpool is a new band that is based in Los Angeles and is made up of seasoned tribute Beatles performers, many of whom have been playing as one of the Fab Four for many years and have come together to perform a new musical tribute to the Beatles.
For example, Jimmy Pou plays George and does a terrific job playing lead guitar and singing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," in addition to capturing George's trademark winks and other gestures to the audience. Peter George plays a rockin John, Jon Perry is Paul who can not only belt out the lead vocals in the classic rocker song "Kansas City", but also can pull off doing a solo acoustic version of "Yesterday" all by himself. Lastly, Rolo Sandoval shines as Ringo.
What's truly unusual about this musical performance is that 4 Lads from Liverpool includes songs from each of their major musical periods, and opens with a set of songs from the early Hamburg days with the Beatles dressed in their black leather jackets and pants. John sings lead on the first opening song, "Rock and Roll Music" wearing a toilet seat around his head!
Also, they show fantastic clips from the old 60s shows and commercials to set the mood when they transition from one period to another and also during most of their songs as well. Each significant phase in the Beatles career is accompanied by a costume change.
The scene shifts from Hamburg to the Cavern Club in Liverpool where the Beatles are shown playing "Some Other Guy" now wearing buttoned down white shirts, vests and pants. Then the scene shifts again with a set from their first show on the Ed Sullivan show where they opened with "All My Loving", followed by "I Want to Hold your Hand" and "Twist and Shout". After Ed Sullivan, the scene changes to their Shea Stadium concert--see the photo below--in which they are shown wearing the outfits they wore just for the Shea Stadium concert.
During each set and costume change in the Beatles career from the early Hamburg days to the last Abbey Road album made, some very rare old clips from the 60s, including one commercial where the 5th Dimension are shown as singing on top of a box of Cherry flavored Jello.
Highlights include the Sergeant Pepper's set in which they successfully pull off the very technically difficult and rarely performed in concert "Day in the Life" without a hitch while showing rare video footage of the actual orchestration for "Day in the Life" at Abbey Roads Studio which includes George Martin, Mick Jagger, Mal Evans and a few others coming in and out of the footage. This author learned from Jon Perry that Paul McCartney actually conducted the 40 piece orchestra for the Day in the Life orchestration as is shown in the video footage for this song.
Other highlights from the show include Peter George as John who comes alive with "Come Together", Jimmy Pou who delivers an enthralling guitar solo and lead vocals on "My Guitar Gently Weeps" and Jon Perry as Paul who rocks the audience during "Get Back".
The last performance is October 31st and there will be a costume contest for your favorite 60s icon. So be sure to catch this great show in San Francisco at the Marines Memorial Theater before it moves to Orlando, Florida in late November. For more information about 4 Lads from Liverpool, go to their website.
Published October 31, 2011
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