Aussie collective brings back Beatles’ Abbey Road

This week I had the pleasure of seeing the 11th studio album recorded by the Beatles performed in full, from start to finish.

Davey Lane, Kram, Darren Middleton and Mark Wilson. Picture: Jason Edwards

This month marked the 50th anniversary of the release of Abbey Road, and this week I had the pleasure of seeing the 11th studio album recorded by the Beatles — and the last one in which all four members participated — performed from start to finish. This is a task that the British band never attempted or achieved itself, yet an audacious group calling itself the Antipodean Rock Collective bravely undertook the endeavour and last night finished an eight-city tour in Wollongong.

The ARC features several familiar faces in Spiderbait drummer Kram, Powderfinger guitarist Darren Middleton, You Am I guitarist Davey Lane and Jet bassist Mark Wilson, backed by a handful of other supremely talented individuals. Following an absorbing run through Abbey Road, the group returned after intermission to travel back in time, from 1969 to 1962, to showcase the full extent of its peerless contribution to popular music.

It was a brilliant show, and from the stage in Brisbane on Sunday, Kram mentioned that Lane was the driving force behind this outlandish effort. When I got him on the phone and asked how they began boning up on their Beatles homework, he replied: “Luckily, about 10 years ago, they remastered the entire catalogue and put out the Rock Band video game, on [Nintendo] Wii and PlayStation. It was from that game that some computer boffin had gotten in and decoded the audio. So thanks to that naughty, intrepid computer boffin, we were able to get multi-tracks for the whole record, which has just made it so much easier to isolate parts.

“It was a big help for all of us, especially with little guitar parts that are somewhat buried but still don’t sound right if they’re not there. I’ve had all those multi-tracks for years — because I’m a nerd — so I just passed them around to everybody, and we all picked them apart and worked out the harmonies, and how to split up the guitar lines from there.”

For Lane, the most challenging part was the fragmented medley on Abbey Road’s second side. “I mean, Sun King has got a four-part harmony, which — when we broke it down and figured out what they were singing — it’s just a testament to the genius of that band,” he said. “You pull it apart and go, ‘I had no f..king idea that’s what they were singing.’ But when you throw it all together, it creates something that’s more than the sum of its parts. It’s just incredible. I didn’t go to school to learn music but I’m so obsessed with the Beatles because that’s been my schooling, in terms of music theory and arrangement. I’m still finding out new things today. It’s a bottomless pit.”