Conductor: Stuart Morley
A Symphonic Magical Mystery Tour.
The jury’s still out on whether tonight’s all you need is love-in Fab Four retro-fest (counterintuitively) actually 
needs vocals at all. No disrespect whatsoever to the far too-young-to-remember ensemble cute quartet. An aside mention perhaps for the crackerjack named Nicole Raquel Dennis, whose nuclear enriched copper-spangled evening gown complements the gloriously background-lit Symphony Hall majestic organ. How many Beatles covers are worthy of remembrance? Marmalades’s Ob La Diperhaps? Something for dads to conduct along with his pipe-stem (no Pan’s People, obviously) or, better even, Joe Cocker’s pyrotechnic antics at Woodstock With A Little Help From My Friends. Answers on a postcard please.
One hundred and forty minutes performance time – the clock’s running – twenty-four songs to madcap medley through. Conductor Stuart Morley and the CBSO, having an it’s getting better all the time of their lives, catch their breath, score sheets flipping in hectic flurries as though the podiums are being bothered by frantic flocks of crisp-winged doves. The audience is likewise agog as to how BSL Interpreter, Sarah Butt, accounts for it all. Given the average age of the audience, the lyrics are DNA patented already. Notably, there’s barely a young face to be spottedtonight – spotted or not.
There’s even a Beatles Quiz available in the cosy, compact programme notes: here’s a couple of particular teasers that even out-foxed a seasoned devotee tonight who recalls queuing all night with her mom from the Odeon box-office down to Digbeth and beyond for her October 12th, 1964 stalls ticket costing fifteen bob. Those were the days when dynamic pricing involved begging parents to sub your Christmas present early for a Beatles’ show. Ticketmaster, anyone? (We Always Give You Our Money).
‘What was The Beatles best selling single?* The first song to be beamed into deep space was a Beatles song. Which one?’** Answers below – no cheating!
Both sets are shrewdly scored with dynamic overtures skating through melodies, riffs and phrases that harp collective memories with incandescent vibrancy and verve. Did The Beatles actually invent the concept of the Rock n Roll killer riff? Day Tripper m’ Lud? The post-interval set is listed as Entr’acte – apparently posh for ‘Here’s one of our previous albums.’
There’s a charming distraction as the band and vocals lend luscious homage to Harrison’s life-affirming heartbreaker, Here Comes The Sun – there are two giddy girls way up in organ loft gallery giving it some 60s dance groove with just the slightest subliminal nuance of the iconic HELP! album cover with the lads spelling out the eponymous title in semaphore. Honestly!
If tonight’s gig tugs at bygone heartstrings, then Ian MacDonald’s 1994 seminal Revolution In The Head (Fourth Estate) provides a forensic breakdown of the Beatles’ catalogue with studio/musicologist analysis brilliance. Notwithstanding, local boy done good, musician/ prolific author, Daniel Rachel (actually from Solihull, but he fancies roughing it with the Brummy Blinders) – his delightful extended hypothetical riff on what might have constituted, The Lost Album Of The Beatles – What if The Beatles Hadn’t Split Up? (Cassell/Octopus, 2023.) conjures all manner of geek and beyond meta-informed speculation. It takes him 141 of 368 pages to get to his contestable speculative playlist Concept. Post-Christmas dinner parlour-game quiz anyone?
Following a brief interlude in which conductor Stuart Morley shares an anecdote relating a trip to New York with his dad, the evening draws to a fitting snack-fest medley celebration of Sergeant Pepper melodies climaxing with the apposite, oceanic swell of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. The organ loft dancing angels already having been there, seen and done it. It’s a superb act – naturally. Carpe Diem – Tomorrow Never Knows.
*I Want To Hold Your Hand. **Across The Universe.
Reviewed on 25 October 2024
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A Taste of Honey
