BI

On Wednesday 30 March the Liverpool Echo Arena was home to a truly unique show: The Live re- staging of The Beatles recording at Abbey Road Studios in London. The closest opportunity you’ll   ever get of experiencing the Beatles in their natural habitat, Abbey Road Studio 2.
Upon entering the venue you will immediately notice that a true to life copy of Studio 2, complete  with  control room and stairs on the left,  takes up the central  part of the floor. The ‘studio’  is surrounded by transparent screens on which images and texts are projected featuring Liverpool, London, screaming fans, lyrics, instruments, flowers, Blue Meanies, and much more.

The show kicks off with of how it was when they broadcast All You Need Is Love. Many people were there at the time and that's exactly what the director wants to tell us. It takes around 45 people to create the same atmosphere, the same sounds and the same extras as the 4 Beatles wanted in the sixties. A ‘true to life’ George Martin tells the audience about the recordings in between the songs. If you close your eyes now, can actually hear George’s accent. The entire was, by the way, dedicated to 'the 5th Beatle'.

After All You Need Is Love it went from Please Please Me to Yellow Submarine in 70 minutes.

They played a couple of tracks from every album, sometimes in edited arrangements. To get the complete, mostly double-tracked voices and instruments, there were 2 sets of 4 Beatles, at least 3 sets of instruments and there was a whole orchestra to support them.

After the break the show continues (of course) with Sgt.Pepper, With A Little Help From My Friends, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, Within You, Without You, She's Leaving Home, Pepper II / A Day In The Life.

The big surprise was the fact that they skipped the complete 'Let It Be' album, stating that this was 'not a pleasant time'. The Abbey Road Album ended with a medley of songs and Hey Jude.

Conclusion: Excellent show, a true audio and visual extravaganza, and much better than the average cover band. We definitely had a wonderful evening.      

A tip if you’re planning to see the show but don’t have tickets yet: If you want to sit as close to the studio as possible, then don’t. Because we did and we realised too late, this was not the smartest idea we ever had. We had floor seats on row 4, to the right of the 'stage'. Nice enough when going to a concert, but in this case seats somewhere higher up would have been much better for an 'all over' view of the show.

And all this for 4 lads from Liverpool.

PARIS, March 5th 2012:

Knowing Paul would be in Paris for Stella's fashion show we planned to try to let him know about this website.
So when he came out of his hotel we saw him and we managed to give him a BI card. On the back we had written a request.

Of course we hope he now knows who we are and we'll see what happens in the future.

Thank you Dominique for your support!

There is some live footage of this moment, check out  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1ZRlZqSiog

or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3WlOaNSPDU

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BEATLES INTERNATIONAL 
offers a 1-day-private-car-tour for you to discover ALL sites of
The BEATLES' Netherlands 1960-1964. 
 

Beatles van taken off the boat in Hook of Holland

-" I have travelled all over the world to sites related to The Beatles - Guus' Holland tour was as good as any I have been on with the highlight having our photograph taken at Oosterbeek Cemetery!" - Paul Sherlock

-" We had a wonderful and unforgettable day touring the many Beatle sites in Holland with our very knowledgeable guide!" - Brian Donofree

-'The trip was a wonderful experience with a personal touch. Guus is a very knowledgeable Beatles guide' - Tim Davies

check out the story of Olaf, Heiko and Ulrike from Germany (in German and in English) from their tour on Monday July 30th 2012

also see footage of their visit in 1964
http://findallvideo.com/beatles-in-blokker-holland-hq/id/2626474562

Read more ...

Queuing up outside the 100 Club for Paul McCartney.

Read more ...

where CROSBY, STILLS & NASH covered Beatles song

CROSBY, STILLS & NASH have covered the Beatles song Norwegian Wood during their 2010 Summer Tour (BI saw them and met Graham in Paris at the renowned Olympia theatre). They started this tradition in 1968 when they tried out Blackbird in a three-voice-setting and they played it in 1969 at the famous Woodstock Music And Art Fair. Much much later they recorded a wonderful version of In My Life as well and now they are trying out some covers for an album to be released in the near future. So they have included a very harmonic version of Norwegian Wood to their present setlist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVzQjdg7P3E .

Beatlesfans are always a bit critical about other people singing Beatles songs, but I think it would be a very nice thing if CSN would record a whole album with Beatles songs.
Graham, if/when you read this, thank you very much (and David and Stephen) for a wonderful evening in Paris. Please do come back to Europe!

And they did in 2011! Included in the setlist were Blackbird and (in Oslo only)
Norwegian Wood, sung with brilliant guitar player Shane Fontane!

We even met David in the streets of Paris and presented him (and later Nash) with a rare Beatles-Rockband-mixes CD.
 

Beatles International (as Brian's guests) meets John Hammel, Rusty, Brian and Paul 'Wix' Wickens backstage in Arnhem. We had a nice chat with especially Wix who promised us, after this tour, we could call him to do an interview. This would take place somewhere in the beginning of 2010 when he is already 21 years part of Paul McCartney's musical life and we'd ask him how his musical life has developed since he joined up with Paul McCartney in 1988. And also, how he managed to deal with all the Beatles musical arrangements. 

But it's almost a year since we met and up until today we tried a couple of times but we weren't able to reach him again. So we really don't know when or if it's going to happen.
As you know they're still on the road, we don't know for how long, we won't give up, we'll keep you informed.