By Adam Gimbel, Freelance Writer
©Copyright 2003 SDAM.com/Adam Gimbel

When John Lennon & Paul McCartney started getting famous, their manager was having them write all kinds of songs for people that no one in America ever really heard about. In some cases, it's no big loss. In other cases, there are tunes that are on par with the Beatles' best. Someone thought it might be interesting to have people re-record some of these songs. Ok. Usually a concept like that results in a tribute album and you get to hear 15 different artists do their usually not-so-different take on the original artist. In this case, someone decided to get Kate Pierson (B-52's), Bill Janovitz (Buffalo Tom) and Graham Parker to get together and make a whole album of these early Lennon/McCartney tunes. Why these three? I dunno. Why take it out on tour? I REALLY don't know. Die-hard Beatle fans filled 4th & B to watch the show by the tablefull. No dancing was to be found and half of the venue was curtained off. Most of the versions were ordinary at best (old songs played on new instruments) and self-indulgent at worst. They took the time to explain the story behind each song which could be interesting to read but just made for a rockshow that dragged. They obviously had to say the same thing every night and were already tired of it. The worst was when Parker (a mediocre singer at best, why HIM!?) introduced a song by describing it as an "Austin-Powersy" number and then had the soundman play the original recording while everyone in the band danced around and danced around and danced around and danced around until they'd played at least half of the song. When Parker was done patting himself on the back about how he was able to transform it into something more modern, the white-boy reggae version began, complete with wacky fake Jamaican accent. You're kidding, right? It looked like the band had a really great time performing. We had to watch it. Luckily I live in a country where I can walk out of a concert after a half hour to go see the greatest live band on earth a couple of miles away (The Rugburns at the Casbah). God bless America.