“1964-The Tribute” thrilled a packed Reynolds Performance Hall audience on Friday, Sept. 10, proving why the fab four is the ultimate Beatles tribute band.
The group includes Mark Benson as John Lennon, Todd Rainey as Paul McCartney, Tom Work as George Harrison and Terry Manfredi as Ringo Starr.
The tribute Fab Four, which have been together for 27 years, about three times longer than the actual Beatles were together played around 30 early Beatles tunes as the crowd sang, clapped and danced along. “1964-The Tribute” tries to recreate the buzz surrounding the Beatles British invasion in 1964 and during the next few years while the foursome toured, before becoming a studio group in the late ‘60s.
“1964-The Tribute” opened the almost two hour concert with “I Saw Her Standing There” from the Beatles debut album “Please, Please Me” from 1963. The song featured Rainey on lead vocals as McCartney and got the show off to a nice rocking start.
The tribute group followed with hit after hit, including the number one tune “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “From Me to You,” “Please Please Me,” “Act Naturally,” “Eight Days a Week,” “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Can’t Buy Me Love” among others.
Midway through the show the group took a 10- minute intermission before returning to the stage for the second half.
When the second half of the show kicked off with the Beatles 1963 hit “Twist & Shout” the entire
Reynolds crowd leapt to their feet. This performance was likely the crowd favorite of the night.
The second half of the concert continued with hits like “Ticket to Ride,” “I Feel Fine,” “In My Life,” “Yesterday,” “Yellow Submarine,” “Nowhere Man,” “Help!” and “Day Tripper.”
The band finished off their set with “She Loves You,” one of the Beatles 27 number one hits. However, after the crowd desperately cheered for more “1964-The Tribute” returned to the stage for an encore including “Rock & Roll Music,” “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Long Tall Sally.”
Among the best performances of the evening were “Yesterday,” “I Feel Fine,” “Nowhere Man,” “Ticket to Ride” and “I Saw Her Standing There,” with “In My Life” perhaps being the very best performance of the show.
Another great aspect of “1964-The Tribute” was the onstage banter between the four, especially Work as Harrison before announcing some of the songs. You could generally tell that the foursome loves what they do for a career.
Everyone in the crowd seemed to have their own special favorite moment of the show.
Conway resident Daniel Bates, who has been a Beatles fan for about nine years, said he enjoyed the performance of “Yellow Submarine,” with Manfredi on lead vocals as Ringo.
“‘Yellow Submarine’ was pretty good. It got everyone into it,” Bates said.
Freshman Austin Kiker’s favorite performance from “1964-The Tribute” was when Work performed “Taxman” as Harrison.
“‘Taxman’ is the first song from my favorite album ‘Revolver.’ That’s why I dig it,” Kiker said.
Freshman Skylar Robins enjoyed singing along to the tribute group on the song “Help!”
“[I liked] all of it, the drum solo and [the band]inciting the crowd to get up and dance. I liked screaming ‘please’ on ‘Help!’ when they incited me to,” Robins said. “1964-The Tribute” celebrated the opening of the 10th season of Reynolds Performance Hall. Reynolds opened up 10 years ago with an inaugural performance by the legendary Ray Charles.
