Homage to Liverpool nakedness

I, like many other children of the Beatles revolution, owe my appreciation of Beatles music to my folks – in particular my old man. The Beatles for him is one of his favourite bands ever (the other being The Moody Blues). As I have not been fortunate enough to see any of the Beatles perform live, I have made the most of any tribute performances on offer (unlike my sister Dee who saw Sir Paul at Live 8 in 2005 - she was kind enough though to call me when he sang Hey Jude!)

What caught our eye for this event, the Let It Be (Naked) acoustic tribute at The Vanguard was the $15 tickets.  Cheap tickets at a great venue, what better way to spend a Sunday evening? We got to the Vanguard at 6.30 so we could nab a good spot. When we walked in we were told that we could sit at any of the tables which were not set for dinner downstairs – which was pretty much two thirds of the tables in the room...ok so maybe they didn’t sell that many tickets. That still didn’t put us off.

We earmarked a table then headed down the road for a bite to eat, and where do we end up, Guzman Y Gomez! Burritos and margaritas, what more could a girl ask for!

Afterwards we wandered back to The Vanguard and got comfy at our table while our new friend, the waiter, brought us drinks for the evening. Now I’m not a coffee drinker, so I’m going off the advice of Jay (a BFF of mine), the cocktail called the Howlin Wolf is awesome (coffee, tequila and some other bits and bobs).

The show began around 8pm with a gentleman called Russell Neal, who was the organiser, a performer and our MC for the evening. He started off with performances of One After909, All You Need is Love and With a Little Help from My Friends. Let’s just say an A for effort to Russell – we were kind of glad when he finished.

Pat O'Grady was up next and sang a great version of The Long and Winding Road giving us some hope that the evening was not all lost. Then Richie Hendo and his Beatles t shirt played Here Comes the Sun.

After these solo performances, Dan Hopkins and few got up on stage (the few could be better described as plus two and included a Bongo drum). We were intrigued by the bongo but there was nothing to worry about. These guys on stage were relaxed, had fun and didn’t sound too bad either. They played an amazing version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
It was also at this point that we realised that a lot of the audience comprised of musicians, their family and friends – so from then on we were a little cautious about what was said out loud! 

There were various other performers which weren’t too bad. Performers included Lucky Luke, Kris and Lian, Tense Formations and Ben Hardie.

Towards the end of the evening an older gentleman and lady got up on stage to perform under the name of Blue Taboo, and they were fantastic. Her voice was enchanting and there was something about her that screamed Joan Baez to me (perhaps it was her calm nature and the acoustic guitar). I would be happy to go and see them play live again.

Mr Malarkey and other performers singing Hey Jude

To finish off was the band Mr Malarkey. The evening ended on a high with them playing songs such as Let it Be, Lady Madonna, We Can Work it Out and Hey Jude, where all the performers who had stuck it out to the end got back up on stage with them. The lead singer had charisma and the backup singer showed some interesting Shakira style moves.

In summing up the evening, I would describe as surprising albeit entertaining. Despite thinking at times we were at an open mic competition we still had an enjoyable evening and appreciated the magical genius created by the lads from Liverpool.