Bootleg Beatles, Usher Hall, Edinburgh
Even at this distance of time, the achievements of the Beatles in the second half of the sixties still take the breath away. The audacious experimentation and creativity evident on their five bestselling albums - Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles (or The White Album) and Abbey Road, all released between December 1965 and September 1969 - saw the quartet progressing onto their next phase before fans and critics had fully absorbed the previous one.
It was a period that also gave rise to some of the Fabs' most affecting songs, from In My Life, Here, There and Everywhere and Eleanor Rigby to She's Leaving Home, A Day in the Life, Dear Prudence, Blackbird, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Something, and Here Comes the Sun. Fittingly, almost all of them cropped up on the Bootleg Beatles' latest setlist, to the evident joy of the people who were crammed into the Usher Hall.
The Bootlegs, who made their debut as long ago as 1980, do this sort of thing really well. Wigs, costumes and beards mimic the Beatles down to the last period detail. Musically, they are exceptional - witness Stephen (George Harrison) Hill's fluid lead-guitar work, originally laid down by Eric Clapton, on While My Guitar Gently Weeps. And the Liverpool accents, too, sound authentic to non-Liverpudlian ears; the Bootlegs' newest recruit, Miles Frizzell, a 21-year-old from Nashville, Tennessee, pulls off Paul McCartney's accent really well. He also closely resembles a youthful Macca.
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It's done with humour, too. There's lots of stage banter, much of it centred on Ringo Starr's (Gordon Elsmore) attempts to seek royalties for his assorted contributions. And there's a moment when Paul Canning, who's portraying John Lennon, murmurs 'not yet!' to the audience as it comes in slightly too soon for a singalong chorus. At the back of the stalls, a small knot of enthusiastic fans are up and dancing, clearly lost in the moment.
Introductory videos, and videos screened during the songs, set the scene, reminding you of abundant culture of the era: everything from Dansette record-players and Twiggy to the Summer of Love, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, A Whiter Shade of Pale, Aretha Franklin, the Beach Boys and more. There are allusions, too, to the wider world, like anti-Vietnam War protests.
But it's the songs that count, from the opener, Rubber Soul's Drive My Car to Abbey Road's Here Comes the Sun and the Medley. Because, with its spellbinding harmonies, is a genuine highlight, as are the poignant She's Leaving Home (its story partly told in comic-book-like illustrations on the video screen) and A Day in the Life, complete with its thunderous, epic final chord. The band are joined on stage by eight musicians on a range of instruments, from sax to cello and viola, while Steve Irlam, who plays keyboards and percussion throughout, is a key part of the overall sound.
There are neat little arresting moments. At the end of A Day in the Life, the stage lights dim momentarily and when they come back on, Hill, Canning, Elsmore and Frizzell have rearranged themselves in the pose taken by the four Beatles on the cover of Sgt Pepper. One introductory video follows a white VW Beetle travelling past London landmarks before pulling up outside the Abbey Road studios. Its number plate - LMW 28IF - is of course the same as the one on the Beetle that can be seen behind the Fab Four on the zebra crossing on Abbey Road cover.
The show ends with a singalong Hey Jude and, finally, Twist and Shout. It's been a joyous night. And the people at the back of the stalls have finally stopped dancing.
The Bootleg Beatles play the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall tonight, Wednesday December 10
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