Sgt. Pepper's and Magical Mystery Tour Live

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is Blogmom of Hey Dullblog. His novels and parodies have sold 1.25 million copies in 25 languages. He lives in Santa Monica, CA, and runs The American Bystander all-star print humor magazine.

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Beatles, 1967.

This past Friday in Chicago I saw Tributosaurus play all of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Magical Mystery Tour” live, and it was astonishingly great. Hearing the whole thing performed with ALL the instruments originally used—a string section, woodwinds, brass, and a host of Indian instruments—underlined just how rich and rewarding these albums are. The greatest double album the Beatles ever made, in my opinion.

Recordings aren’t going to do this justice, but here’s a clip of “A Day in the Life” that’s been posted:

http://youtu.be/w4Nv7aIFEjQ

Here are a few of my favorite moments from the show:

The drummer, Dan Leali, singing “With A Little Help From My Friends” while drumming
The string section and “Indian band” on stage during “Within You Without You”—a powerful visual representation of Harrison’s bringing Eastern and Western musical stylings together
The harp in “She’s Living Home”
The clarinet trio on “When I’m Sixty-Four”
The bass saxophone on “Good Morning, Good Morning” (Biggest sax I’d ever seen; looks like something Dr. Suess dreamed up)
The brass on “Lovely Rita”
The piccolo trumpet on “Penny Lane”
Steve Frisbie’s uncannily channeling McCartney’s vocal style, especially on “Magical Mystery Tour”
The band’s humor throughout; they take the music, but not themselves, seriously

One Comment

Anonymous November 1, 2012 at 12:25 am

That looks like it must have been an incredible performance.

I’m curious if the surviving Beatles have seen shows like this live, and if so, what they had to say about it. I’m not speaking about the “beatlemania” type tribute bands, but artists like this, as well as the Fab Faux.

– Hologram Sam

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Sgt. Pepper’s and Magical Mystery Tour Live

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