On Monday, November 17th, Vic and I took Graeme to the first of RAIN’s two night engagement at the Thalia Mara Auditorium. The show was just as you’d expect… a quick scoop thru nearly all of the Beatles’ phases of their career. The set list that particular night included but not in order: “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” (opener), “This Boy” (I swear it almost sounded like they played in the tape edit from the studio version of this!), “Twist And Shout”, “I Saw Her Standing There”, “A Hard Day’s Night”, “I’m Happy Just To Dance With You”, “I Feel Fine” (my personal favorite Beatles tune along with “Tell Me Why”!), “Day Tripper”, “Yesterday” (which the left-handed bass playing Paul, played right-handed on his six string acoustic guitar), “Eleanor Rigby”, “With A Little Help From My Friends”, “When I’m Sixty-Four”, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise)”, “A Day In The Life” (with the orchestral bits flown in from the original recording), “Strawberry Fields Forever”, “I Am The Walrus”, “Girl”, “Blackbird”, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” (which seemed to be an amalgamation of the studio version and the demo version with the new George Martin string arrangement from “Love”), “Come Together”, “Get Back”, “Revolution” (fast version), “Give Peace A Chance”, “The End”, “Imagine”, “Let It Be”, and “Hey Jude”. They performed all of them with “considerable aplomb”, as our trans-atlantic brethren would say, right down to the witty banter between numbers. A couple of things for the train-spotters among you… John’s tone when he switched to the Gibson for the later period tunes was spot-on. Ringo correctly left-hand sticked the more bizarre of his patterns. Paul wore no shoes for the late period segment. The front of Ringo’s kick drum was replaced with velcro-on drum heads for each corresponding period. On the downside- Paul played the Hofner violin bass the entire night… Where was the Rick-o-Sound??? The tempos felt a shade quick on some of the loping numbers such as “With A Little Help From My Friends” and “I Am The Walrus”. And as Steve Long, proprietor of Steve’s Downtown Deli, astutely pointed out- there was something a little fishy about John’s phrasing. Fantastic performance in the end however (see picture).

The best thing about the performance for us was getting to experience it with Graeme (who just turned 4 a week earlier). Graeme has been a Beatles fan since birth (see “exhibit A” here) and(“exhibit B” here). Vic and I held him thru all of the show so he could see. He was saying the funniest things… “Ringo looks better without a moustache”… “Why is John Lennon wearing glasses”… and in the car the next morning when listening to “Yesterday”… he said- “Paul played this one by himself”. He thinks he saw the actual Beatles (a memory he will have until someone ruins it for him sometime in his late twenties!). I had a similar experience when I was around 5 years old. I was at the Neshoba County Fair and saw a cover band performing on the horse track there. They did “We’re An American Band” and up until about 5 years ago I swore that I had seen Grand Funk Railroad. Thanks to my sister for ruining that for me! :) Grand Funk are/were no Beatles but you get the similarity of the situations.

The Ringo (a.k.a. Ralph) and the Paul (a.k.a. Alex) came into Steve’s Downtown Deli for lunch on Tuesday. Steve had a great chat with them about the merits of Richie Barrett (again… for the trainspotters!) and about the previous night’s performance (which he also attended). They were so kind as to give him some free tickets to the upcoming Tuesday night performance. Steve told them about his drummer friend Denny and his family being at the Monday night gig too and they invited the lot of us to drop by the soundcheck before Tuesday night’s performance at the auditorium (soundcheck was from 5-6pm). They said they were going to be rehearsing side two of Abbey Road at soundcheck. They also didn’t mind letting Steve snap a pic with his phone (see picture).

We did in fact take Graeme by the soundcheck. We entered thru the back of the auditorium and immediately came upon the open wardrobe flight cases with all of the suits on full display! As we walked into the “green room” we were warmly greeted by Paul (Alex) and John (Steve) along with several members of the crew (including a drummer named Joe who was on the road with them apprenticing to be the Ringo stand-in interestingly enough). They were very kind to us and particularly to Graeme… introducing themselves and playing along with their respective characters for him. They were just heading toward the stage for their soundcheck. We walked onto the edge of the stage and got some up close glimpses of their guitars and the Ringo drum kit. A minute later Ralph (Ringo) walked past toward his drums as he was talking on his phone. When he was off the phone he said hello to us and I told him that we were friends of Steve from the deli. He said “Oh… you’re the drummer?” After I introduced Vic and Graeme to “Ringo”, he began asking me to take a look at a problem he was having with his snare drum. He showed me that the lug casings had just been snapping off as he tensioned the drum tightly. It was some sort of custom made 12-ply maple snare that had been made specifically for him. I looked at the casings and told him that I had a friend in town who built and repaired drums and offered to give him a quick call. I phoned Joe Partridge on his cel. phone, and as luck would have it, he was on his way home from work and said that he’d just swing by the auditorium to take a look at the drum. Joe arrived and Ralph, Joe and I gathered around to look a the drum (see picture). Joe recognized immediately the hardware that had been used on the custom shell and told Ralph that he could get it fixed for him but it would take a few days. Joe wound up putting Ralph in touch with George Lawrence, who runs George’s Drum Shop in Copley, Ohio. George is getting him the replacement parts that he needs. The cool thing is that Ralph is getting Joe to build one of his custom snare drums for him! He was also kind enough to Joe to put him and his wife on the guest list for Tuesday evening’s performance and they wound up sitting in the 4th row front and center.

While I was involved in the drum repair, Vic and Graeme were busy chatting with the other guys in the group and when they asked what Graeme’s favorite Beatles song was he replied “Bells On A Hill” (of course referring to “‘Til There Was You”). After a plan of action had been determined for the ailing snare drum, we stepped off the front edge of the stage and sat in the front row seats to take in some of the soundcheck rehearsal (they were rehearsing only thru the onstage monitors, not thru the entire house P.A.). They promptly launched into my fave- “I Feel Fine”! I was overtaken with the urge to ask if I could sit in and play with them, but I resisted. As nice as they were, they probably wouldn’t have minded. After “I Feel Fine”, they did a complete version of “‘Til There Was You” just for Graeme! Unbelievable (see picture). They never worked on the Abbey Road stuff (much to my delight, being such a huge fan of the pre-Rubber Soul era). I guess the drum repair incident derailed them a bit?

[A side note here about Paul (Alex)... Alex is not the normal Paul who gigs with Rain. Apparently he was just subbing a few dates for Joey Curatolo. Alex however, plays the Paul in another Beatles tribute group called Beatlemania Now where his brother plays the John role. I've read that they are the sons of one of the members of the 80's group- The Hooters. Nothing against Joey (who plays right-handed), but Alex totally killed! Not only is Alex probably in his early to mid-twenties, but he also taught himself to play bass left-handed.]

It was a really great experience, particularly for Graeme. They were all very kind to let our little family intrude on their work day. I am kicking myself for not taking pictures of their wardrobe flight cases. They were all open and had all of their suits (including the “Argent Peppermint” suits as Graeme calls them) just hanging there. That would have made for some really great snaps. I kinda spaced out on the pics. Sometimes I don’t want to miss the moment by having a camera in front of my face. And also part of me didn’t want to take advantage of their generosity. That’s silly I know, ‘cos they wouldn’t have minded at all. I did include my email address in a Vamps CD I gave to Ralph though (with our soul-jazz version of “Taxman” included), and Joe Partridge has his phone number for the drum repairs… so maybe we’ll hear from him again!?

I dragged out my Beatles books the following morning and let Graeme look at one of them in the car on the way to school. He was looking at George’s Gretsch guitar and said… “Daddy… That’s the same guitar we saw!” Let the obsessive compulsive behavior begin! Like father, like son.

Here are some related links: A montage of RAIN clips (with the other Paul, not Alex) RAIN on CBS Sunday Morning A clip of Alex singing “Lucille” with Beatlemania Now RAIN website Beatlemania Now website