Peter Viney's Blog

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Original score by Andrew Cottee
Conducted by David Brophy
with
Mark McGann as John Lennon
Joe Stilgoe as Paul McCartney
With Claire Martin

Poole Lighthouse
Saturday 21^st October 2023 19.30

From the BSO website:

This two-act evening takes us chronologically from Lennon and McCartney’s first meeting in 1957 to the end of The Beatles in 1970. With sold out performances in Liverpool, Gateshead, Dublin and Finland, it is a truly unforgettable experience for audiences and performers alike, one that weaves a brilliant original score by Andrew Cottee with acted sequences by the three vocalists/actors to shed light on the true story behind these globally loved compositions and their composers’ relationship.

SETLIST

• Two of Us
• In My Life
• Penny Lane
• Strawberry Fields Forever
• Things We Said Today
• I Should Have Known Better
• Here There and Everywhere
• Ticket To Ride
• Yesterday
• All You Need Is Love
• INTERVAL
• All You Need Is Love (reprise)
• Getting Better }
• She’s Leaving Home }
• A Little Help From My Friends |
• Eleanor Rigby
• A Day In The Life
• Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
• The Fool On The Hill
• The Long & Winding Road
• I Got A Feeling
• You Never Give Me Your Money
• God (John Lennon solo song)
• Carry That Weight
• In The End
• ENCORE
• Hey Jude

The first comparison is The Bootleg Beatles, who perform the later works with a small orchestra, costumes, projections and their look-a-like sound-a-like band.

Then there is the plethora of cover versions by symphony orchestras, massed strings, choirs, dance orchestras, big bands in the jazz field, brass bands, military bands, reggae, unaccompanied singers, blues singers, soul, Moog synthesizers, ANYTHING with a Beatles connection, however misguided, is collectible.

There is added interest in the way the composers later commented on who did what. Paul McCartney has been particularly vehement, and caused a fuss by wanting to reverse to  McCartney-Lennon on a reissue of Yesterday, which was occasioned by John's disparaging remark in How Do You Sleep?

You live with straights who tell you, you was king
Jump when your momma tell you anything
The only thing you done was yesterday
And since you're gone you're just another day

It never stopped John taking half the royalties on Yesterday. John also took a swipe at Another Day and Linda McCartney.

I understand Paul's point of view having done a series of textbooks as 'Hartley-Viney' (like Paul, I am alphabetically challenged on credits). I've also been quite vehement on who actually wrote what. The one that gets me is the second in the Streamline series. Our publisher, OUP, decided to split our original one book into two, and asked for four new units at the start of book two to bridge the (new) gap. There was a deadline. I co-wrote them with Karen … 100% … while my co-author was in Latin America. He refused to even acknowledge Karen's contribution in the introduction, though one later unit was entirely her work.

Before we start. I took my seat at 7.15 and most of the string sections are on stage tuning up. Woodwind come on 7 or 8 minutes later, and brass a couple of minutes before the start. I suppose brass don't need to tune up. Unlike the BSO Pink Floyd concerts, there is no bass guitar and the standard drummer, hidden behind the pianist, doesn't play much. There are timpani, tom toms, bongoes and a BIG bass drum.

There’s a concept. They act out the parts of John and Paul, and I will note Mark McGann as ‘JOHN’ and Joe Stilgoe as ‘PAUL’ with Claire Martin as ‘CLAIRE.’ There is dialogue (I won’t spoil by revealing it, but it’s well done and funny) and there are a few snatches of songs they don’t go on to perform. Mark McGann is greatly advantaged by doing a good Liverpool accent and more importantly looking like an older version of John Lennon.

The comparison throughout has to be The Bootleg Beatles who use a much smaller string section and a much smaller brass section and followed the George Martin arrangements. These are mainly, or completely, new arrangements, but the arranger isn’t credited.

They open with Two of Us from Let It Be and I don’t think that would have occurred to anyone as an important song until Peter Jackson’s Get Back (LINKED) trilogy in 2021. It provides the title and John and Paul sing it together on two mics. It is appropriate as a late retrospective song. I was fascinated by plucked violins en masse, then strumming chords on violins. It’s not a song that lends itself to a full orchestra, but it worked.

Then they switch to single singer mode. This puzzled me. There was a lead singer in Beatles songs, but usually there are backing vocals and harmonies. That was their blend. I thought it a major error here to eschew that. They had three very good singers. Couldn’t they do harmonies? I can only think they wanted to emphasize ‘This is John’s song. This is Paul’s song.’

So John sings In My Life from Rubber Soul, which has ridden high in polls for best Beatles song. It’s 1965. In 2000 Mojo voted it ‘best song of all time.’ Rolling Stone placed it as #23 in ‘500 Greatest Songs.’ I love it, but I’d never place it that high. Mark McGann as John sings it solo. I’d have done it with a string quartet rather than the lot.

The storytelling aspect leads them to the double-sided single which was the Beatles song NOT to get to #1 due to split sides, and the success of the horrible Release Me by Englebert Humperdink. Penny Lane, sung completely solo by Joe Silgoe as Paul, leads off. It lends itself to an orchestra, because its famed for its allegedly unplayable piccolo trumpet solo. David Mason, who played it on the original, earned £27 10 shillings. Anyway, the BSO got it right.

They flipped to the A side, Strawberry Fields Forever, sung by ‘John.’ Both are nostalgic hence their chronological position. The original will be on my Desert Island Discs eight when the BBC hopefully and eventually deign to invite me. It’s a new arrangement here, and doesn’t follow the many bootlegged and surviving sessions for the original.

Claire Martin is introduced to sing Things We Said Today from A Hard Day’s Night. It’s definitely pure McCartney. It dates from the era when ‘Serious music critics’ discovered The Beatles.

It consistently uses a B♭ chord, which musicologist Alan W. Pollack writes “adds even more spice to both the melody and harmony”, and is suggestive of the “exotic  Phrygian mode.” The chord is first heard at 0:23, substituting for a more typical change of F minor.Between verses, the song includes an extra bar of I as a vamp.

Wikipedia

I see. Well, I don’t.

Claire Martin is a greatly acclaimed jazzy Big Band singer. On the whole too jazzy for me. She is a conventionally excellent singer, but in a style you might describe as ‘BBC Light Programme.’ Until 1967, needle time restrictions meant the Light Programme could only play records for a few minutes per hour, so was mainly cover versions with a studio orchestra. So you’d have Alan Breeze and Kathie Kay singing with the Billy Cotton Band (as Alan Breeze did from 1932 to 1968, and Kathie Kay did from 1949 to 1968), and they’d announce ‘Kathie Kay sings Heartbreak Hotel / Walkin’ Back to Happiness/ I Can’t Get No Satisfaction/ Softly As I Leave You / Like A Rolling Stone‘ and she’d do it all. All note perfect, conventional good singing. Then the live radio singers (such as Elvis Costello’s dad, Ross McManus) would pop round to New Bond Street studios and do the weekly cover versions for Woolworths’ Embassy label, or Pye at Marble Arch and do their various budget covers.

The lack of backing singing didn’t help. Why don’t they add that? It’s beginning to irritate me.

I Should Have Known Better switches to ‘John’ and is another A Hard Day’s Night song. This a big, brassy version. Very brassy. It suits the song.

Here , There and Everywhere puts Joe Silgoe as Paul playing piano and singing. It’s from Revolver and 1966. This is one with backing vocals which The Beatles spent days perfecting, so why do they do it as a single voice? Like the earlier In My Life simpler (but still classical instruments) backing would have helped.

Claire Martin is back for Ticket To Ride. Good joke from our ‘John.’ I won’t spoil it by revealing. Sorry, I really didn’t like her version at all. Nor did I think the orchestral arrangement helped. In her defence, a pet hate of mine is Ella Fitzgerald singing Can’t Buy Me Love. I don’t like jazz vocalists doing The Beatles. Not ever. I squirmed through this one.

John and Paul do a routine on writing Yesterday from Help! on piano and acoustic guitar with the often described filler temporary lyric: Scrambled eggs/Oh my baby how I love your legs. It was not a UK single. John had absolutely no input on writing or recording. The record is just Paul McCartney, piano and string quartet.

The song was around for months and months before we finally completed it. Every time we got together to write songs for a recording session, this one would come up. We almost had it finished. Paul wrote nearly all of it, but we just couldn’t find the right title. We called it ‘Scrambled Eggs’ and it became a joke between us. We made up our minds that only a one-word title would suit, we just couldn’t find the right one. Then one morning Paul woke up and the song and the title were both there, completed. I was sorry in a way, we’d had so many laughs about it

John Lennon (the real one).

Then they stand and watch Claire Martin sing it solo. Yes, she can reach all the notes. It is a first class conventional version. I don’t think the orchestra added greatly. I would have vastly preferred just piano and a string quartet. OK, we know 101 Strings did it with the lot. Unfortunately. There are 2200 cover versions of the song in existence. Thank you, Wiki.

At last! All three vocalists combine for All You Need is Love. (BTW, Mexican waves long post-date The Beatles). However, they take it in turns to do a verse in preference to harmonising, and only sing together on the chorus line. It led to the interval. We waved our arms. I loved the way the string section followed them off while still playing their instruments in New Orleans style.

THE INTERVAL

So far, I had not been impressed. I think they needed to support the lead singers. I would have liked a straight instrumental symphonic version of a song or two to highlight the orchestra. The banter was good.

The second half was much better, mainly because they were moving into The Beatles studio period. It’s the point where the Bootleg Beatles bring on the strings and horns. They’d changed clothes too. John was in a white suit. Paul had a waistcoat. Claire had changed from a white top to a black top.

They opened with a short reprise of All You Need Is Love, with all three on the mics. A nice idea, picking up after the interval.

Then we were into a Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band medley. It starts with Getting Better with Claire singing, followed by She’s Leaving Home by Claire with John and finishing with Paul on A Little Help From Your Friends. I missed Ringo. I missed Joe Cocker.

Claire sang Eleanor Rigby which is one where all the orchestral signposts are in the original. It’s a great one for the strings. They can accentuate and improve the backing too, so there’s even more going on than the original. All attention was on the backing.

The high point (?) of the evening was A Day In The Life Of sung by John, with of course Paul on the middle section. This was the point I went from doubter to believer. It was a magnificent version and used the orchestra to its full extent. This is the one where sixty musicians make the difference. Even The Bootleg Beatles would be thin in comparison.

On high points, next up was Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. They told the well-known tale that it was based on a kindergarten picture by Julian Lennon’s school friend Lucy. The noise of a collective scoff filled the hall. More so when John asked who worked out the initials of a song title. Anyway, John sang it and it was another full orchestra triumph.

They switched to Magical Mystery Tour for The Fool On The Hill sung by Claire. This is a song that always veered towards conventionally good singers so it worked.

The Long and Winding Road took us into Let It Be, and the added knowledge we gained from the Get Back films. It’s sung at piano by Paul. John has come on with an electric guitar (which has no lead) and sits watching him, shaking his head mournfully and tutting. It’s the most theatrical performance. However, there’s irony here. John and George commissioned Phil Spector to adorn the original with schmaltzy strings but that was against Paul McCartney’s wishes, and he hated it. So years later he remixed it as Let It Be – Naked without the strings.

I Got A Feeling still from Let It Be follows. This is Paul in his rock screamer Little Richard mode, and I guess is his response to John’s criticism. The arrangement is novel. The entire string section sit still and it’s all brass. Innovative, very different adornment of a simple Lennon-McCartney arrangement. Does it work? I’m not sure, but it’s beefy

We move into Abbey Road for You Never Give Me Your Money sung by Paul.

The switch is dramatic. John sings God from John Lennon/ Plastic Ono Band, the solo LP:

God is a concept
by which we measure our pain …
I don't believe in kings 
I don't believe in Elvis 
I don't believe in Zimmerman 
I don't believe in Beatles 
I just believe in me 
Yoko and me 
And that's reality 

From the story point, it was a very clever addition. It reminds me of commenting that the Bootleg Beatles should do an imaginary Beatles 1973 or 1974 reunion with the best of the solo material …Working Class Hero, Imagine, My Sweet Lord, If Not For You, Back Seat of My Car, Another Day, It Don’t Come Easy, Photograph, and so on.

They stay on Abbey Road for Carry That Weight with all three singers (Good!), then Paul finishes it off appropriately with In The End.

The encore brought the house down, a rousing and fabulous Hey Jude. It has that anthem quality, and yes, I was among the many who leapt to their feet. Our conductor, David Brophy was joining in on the mic. We were singing along. A true rock concert ender.

So it ended well. Musically, it seemed a miss not to go into Golden Slumbers after Carry That Weight. They skipped The White Album totally. If they’d done Blackbird it would have suited classical instrumentation.

ARTICLES I’VE DONE WITH BEATLES CONNECTIONS HERE:

FILM

• Get Back (Part 1)
• Get Back (Part 2)
• Get Back (Part 3)
• A Hard Day’s Night
• Help!

CONCERTS

• The Bootleg Beatles 2018
• The Bootleg Beatles 2022

ON THE AROUND AND AROUND WEBSITE

The Best Beatles Album?
Art of the LP: Sergeant Pepper

REVILED! THE ALBUMS CRITICS LOVE TO HATE

Beatles For Sale
Let It Be
Wild Life
Some Time In New York City