Beatlemania lives on with All You Need Is Love

Producers Tim Woods and Phil Bathols tap into the Baby Boomers’ Beatlemania phenomenon with a revival of their show All You Need Is Love.

All You Need is Love frontmen (from left) Jack Jones, Jackson Thomas and Ciaran Gribbin.

• Bob Dylan still reinventing the wheel
• We're going to have a party, party
• Song and dance man Bill Murray
• Southern man keeping it real

Any youngster growing up in the 1960s could expect a new single and album to be released by the Beatles in time for the Christmas holidays.

This would go straight on the Dansette record player and would probably be in continuous play until the diamond stylus needed replacing.

Tapping into this Baby Boomers’ Beatlemania phenomenon, producers Tim Woods and Phil Bathols have come up with a series of Live Beatles projects to plug the gap — cunningly timed to coincide with the New Year holiday period. Most of the albums have been featured in back to back concerts with some of Australia’s best rock vocalists backed by superb session musicians headed by guitar master and musical director Rex Goh.

Avoiding the trap of trying to sound like the originals, the front men vocalists nevertheless capture the mood and essence of the material while the listener’s musical memory fills in the rest.

FAITHFUL

This year marks the return after five years of All You Need Is Love over three nights in Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, with the original four vocalists — Jack Jones of Southern Sons, Thirsty Merc’s Rai Thistlethwayte, Ciaran Gribbin of INXS and The Voice star Jackson Thomas — re-creating hit singles and big format songs from the albums, all backed by the 35-piece Strawberry Fields Orchestra.

The set list is as much a tribute to the “fifth Beatle” George Martin as to the Fab Four, with some of his stunning arrangements — including the baroque strings of Eleanor Rigby, the chaotic sliding orchestral crescendo of A Day In The Life, the piccolo trumpet of Penny Lane and the horn solo of For No One — all faithfully reproduced under the enthusiastic baton of Dom Harvey*.

Gribbin got the 30-song two-act show under way with a shot from Revolver in Gotta Get You Into My Life, complete with a Muscle Shoals horn section and driving beat from Goh, guitarist Paul Berton, Sherbet bassist Tony Mitchell and the thinking man’s drummer Hamish Stuart.

PUMPING

From there the momentum barely waned, with Jones swapping between swooning melodic McCartney ballads like Yesterday and The Long and Winding Road to laying down some dirty blues guitar riffs for John Lennon’s I Want You (She’s So Heavy).

Gribbin prowled the stage for I Am The Walrus and settled back on a stool for Norwegian Wood with Goh providing George Harrison’s sitar lines.

Thomas, who started as a boy soprano with Opera Australia, showed he still has a sweet tone with Let It Be and Thistlethwayte made this listener well up with a beautiful performance of Harrison’s Across The Universe, while also showing his pianistic skills with a pumping version of Lady Madonna.

After the foursome got the crowd to its feet to sing along with Yellow Submarine there was always going to be room for two encores and they could only be All You Need Is Love and — what else? — Hey Jude to bring such a lovely audience out into the hot Sydney night.

If you’re quick you may be able to get a ticket for the third and last Sydney show at 4pm on Friday, January 4.

* Just a gripe about the program. For $20 you would expect it to be up to date. Sir George Martin died in 2016 but the tribute article does not mention it. And Wa Wa Nee lead singer and Beatles Live regular collaborator Paul Gray died early last year and still appears on the song list.

DETAILS

● CONCERT: All You Need Is Love

● WHERE: Sydney Opera House Concert Hall

● WHEN: Tuesday, January 1