After seeing two decent productions here this summer with their stellar Hall of Fame show and a terrific July 4th program with Steve Martin and his banjo band, I had to go to their Beatles 50th Anniversary tribute. And ruin it all.
How can you fuck up a Beatle tribute? I'll tell you.
This should have been a home run. Honoring the Beatles on the very date that they played the Hollywood Bowl fifty years ago. And starting the show by replicating the exact 30 minute set that the boys did a half century ago in the same order of song. Wonderful memories should have been overflowing the Bowl.
Well, there was a flood but sort of akin to what happens to your toilet after you've eaten way too much Mexican food.
I expected to hear a voice over the loudspeaker that announced "Clean-up on Highland Avenue." This was that much of a misguided evening.
There must have been a lot of anticipation for this show. When I purchased my Hollywood Bowl package of tickets last Spring, there was such a high demand for this show that I ended up much higher on the hill than usual. Indeed, I was the fool on the hill. Along with a lot of other ardent Beatles fans who were duped as if they were being told again that Paul is dead.
Okay, we're talking proximity to Hollywood now. The entertainment capital of the world. All summer, I kept checking the Bowl website to see who was going to be part of this show. And, each and every time, I kept reading "artists to be announced." So, Silly Me is thinking that Ringo was holding out for extra money to perform. When the list of musicians was finally posted a few weeks ago, I asked one question over and over.
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
If there was any evening where you had to buy one of the Hollywood Bowl's one dollar programs, this was it. Because not only did you not know most of the performers, none of them were introduced when they came on stage. You might as well have been blindfolded like Dorothy Kilgallen on the old "What's My Line" TV show.
The evening was produced by Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics and I, at least, had heard of them. But, in Tinsel Town, this is the best that the Hollywood Bowl could conjure up to produce this tribute? The town is crawling with musicians and legends who easily could have shown up to do a number or two in their sleep. Instead, we got Stewart. And, from what I later learn, several members of his family.
Wow. Stewart Home Movies. Let's all sing "Long Tall Sally" while we pass the cranberries and the stuffing over Thanksgiving dinner. How dare they dump this on folks who, in my case, had paid almost 40 bucks each for the ticket? Hell, I was chewing on an extra ticket that went unused so it was double the swallow for yours truly. Meanwhile, in the background, there was a poster of the original Beatles Bowl ticket. That was three dollars. I was feeling sicker by the minute.
The show started by trucking out Bob Eubanks of Newlywed Game fame who was...surprise to me...the producer of many of the Beatles concerts during their 1964 American tour. He told some anecdotes as best he could through the plastic surgery and also read an e-mail from Sir Paul who was wisely miles away from this stink bomb. If only, Eubanks had deviated and done a version of his old game show on stage.
"Couple #1, which Beatle does your husband say he looks like most?"
Now that would have been fun and worth the....oh, God, gasp,..39 dollars.
The first act was, as I mentioned, the reproduction of the Beatles' Bowl appearance by some of the performers who still remain a total mystery to me. Most weren't very good and you had an idea that Stewart should have arranged for a bit more rehearsal time in his garage. I mean, what can you say when those old Beatlemania productions gave you a better show?
After an intermission where mostly everybody came back, the second half focused on the Beatles' later works that were likely produced under the haze of drugs and liquor. If only the audience had been so lucky. By the inexplicably kind reaction of a majority of the crowd, I am thinking that cheap wine can make anything sound good. Meanwhile, a bunch of nobodies meandered around the stage as if they were going to a clearance sale at Guitar Center.
When the biggest name you can pull in for this was Billy Ray Fucking Cyrus, you know that you've sunk as low as you can do. When Cyrus got the honor of croaking out "Hey Jude," the throng responded as if they were hearing the real thing. Given that I had seen an exact Beatle do the same tune just two weeks earlier, I can tell you that it wasn't.
The show itself ended at 10:05PM, which also screamed to me that this might be the shortest Hollywood Bowl concert I have attended. But, I thanked God for the mercy being bestowed upon us.
Total waste of a Saturday night? Not really. I was in the company of good friends. We had nice wine and wonderful snacks.
All of which we could have enjoyed in the comforts of somebody's living room with some Beatles CDs playing in the background.
Dinner last night: Sandwich and salad.
1 comment:
Sorry for your loss. The Bowl should offer a full no-questions-asked refund for shows with a TBD cast. It isn't fair the way they do it. They wanted to make money off the Beatles and Beatle fans. Bums.
Post a Comment