Seacoast History Blog #50
June 17, 2009

A week after seeing the imitation Beatles band RAIN at the Portsmouth Music Hall, I’m still suffering from posttraumatic stress. I know they were not the real Beatles, but with my poor eyesight and their wealth of musical talent, the tribute concert seems to have triggered a cascade of feelings and memories. That always happens when I listen to the Beatles. It goes with the territory of being a Baby Boomer that each song in the catalog conjures a memory. But to see hundreds of grayhairs bumping and grinding to a band that looks and sounds like the real thing – that was a revelation.  (continued below) 

Would Catholics genuflect to a look-alike Pope? I guess, since Christian Fundamentalists grow emotional at theme parks where fake Jesuses preach among concrete pillars at faux temples in a fake desert. Apparently, for us humans, close enough is good enough. 

I would not call myself a Beatles fanatic. I know a few, and I don’t qualify. I have only a couple of Beatle albums – Beatles 65, I think, and a borrowed copy of Rubber Soul that I never returned.—and a couple of 45s. I did see them on Ed Sullivan. I did see A Hard Day’s Night and Help the moment they opened at the Palace Theater in Manchester in the 60s. And I have read my share of Beatles books and seen most of the documentaries.

Admittedly, I did play Beatles songs in a band when I was in high school. I actually bought the sheet music to “I want to Hold Your Hand” and made my elderly piano teacher show me how to play it. I often note, when waxing nostalgic, that my band and the Beatles both broke up in 1969.

But that’s just normal. I never saw any of the Beatles live in concert, and never really wanted to. I prefer recordings to live music most of the time. I’m interested in the art, not so much the artist. I tend not to be star struck. I know that the last thing Sir Paul McCartney needs now is another tearful, middle aged man running up to him in the airport to say, “Love your stuff, man. Big fan! You’re awesome.”

What’s truly awesome is, not just the music, but the way the entire iconography of the band has been hot-wired into my generation. The way Ringo flicked his hair and smiled. The way Paul held his guitar. These are among the deepest memories of my life, reinforced by movies and television specials and now, a hauntingly authentic tribute band that, itself, has been on the road for over two decades.

This sensual imagery, set to an unforgettable Lennon-McCartney soundtrack thrives in a very fundamental part of my perception of myself. They are part of who I am. I can sing, without effort, at least 100 Beatle songs. In all likelihood, these may be the final memories running as my old brain plays out. They symbolize how young I feel, and how old I have become.

The real Beatles stopped touring in 1966. Their concerts were barely 20 minutes long, and if you were there, you couldn’t hear the music for the screaming. RAIN plays for over two hours and the men in the band are technically better musicians than the Beatles themselves. RAIN recreates complex studio recordings with technical perfection that tricks the mind into believing – off and on – that 700 people in a Portsmouth theatre are actually watching history in the making.

That Is the miracle of this show. It conjures five eras of the Beatle journey so successfully, from Ed Sullivan to Abbey Road, that one comes away feeling like a participant. That feeling could not be fully realized without hundreds of screaming fans all around, and knowing this, the faux-Fab Four continually whip their audience into a passion, sending each individual into his or her personal cascade of Beatle-related memories. We are, in the real world, all attending a very realistic Beatle simulation. The experience is very public, very private, very real and really fake.

That combination, apparently, tripped the inner switch that gets one wondering where ones life has gone. The Beatles, we know, have placed their brand on history. But what of us Beatle listeners? We can still sing “Give Peace a Chance” as war rages all around. We can sing “Imagine” with the duplicate John or “Yesterday” with the duplicate Paul, yet remain materialistic and cynical, stumbling over daily details and unable to fix the world.

Through the Beatle looking glass, I see myself brimful of innocence and hope, dancing on possibility, reeling with promise. Looking deeper I see discouragement, frustration, disorientation and disarray. The Beatles, as a band at least, never found the answer. They stripped the world apart and, having placed the pieces at our feet, broke up and skipped town. They became millionaire celebrities. We were abandoned, without a manual, to reassemble the world as best we could. The grand healing, the one in which we all came together, never happened.  RAIN reminds me of how good it felt to think I was going to make a difference. RAIN also reminds me that, so far, I have not.

© 2009 J. Dennis Robinson. All rights reserved.