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April 30- May 6, 2009 The British revision
Boulder classic rock band Hindsight jams with “The Beatles”
by Dylan Otto Krider
On Nov. 22, 1963, there were two watershed events — one that shocked the world, and one that went largely unnoticed. The first was the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas. The second was the release of the sophomore album of an obscure band from England known as The Beatles. Yet, two months later, everyone of a certain age group in America knew about the four young Brits with the moppy hair.
After that, it was unclear whether it was The Beatles who made history — or history that made The Beatles.
As the cartoonist Fred Hembeck put it, “Not to downplay the awful tragedy that took place half a world away in Dallas that very same day, but ever since I learned of the actual release date of With The Beatles several years back, I’ve been intrigued by what some might call the karmic balance of the two events. JFK’s assassination was arguably the single darkest cloud to hover over our nation in that troubled and turbulent decade, and the first real rays of sunshine to peek through that oppressive cloud were provided by much of the music on this very recording.”
By the time The Beatles landed in America to launch the British Invasion in February 1964, the airport had already been named JFK, and the youth of the nation needed new icons. Screaming fans greeted them, and by the time their three-week tour made a stop at the Ed Sullivan Show, 45 percent of the nation tuned in to watch.
To give you an idea of the speed with which the nation was evolving, keep in mind that all of this took place within the span of two and a half months. The assassination of JFK had made the youth aware that something was missing, a void that The Beatles somehow filled, and by 1965, the shaggy hair that shocked 1950s sensibilities was starting to be found on politicians in the halls of
Congress. By ’67, it was the Summer of Love.
Ken Weiss and Arnie Rosenthal were there. Weiss saw The Beatles perform at Shea Stadium in ’65, and Rosenthal, whose uncle was the road manager for their tour, went in ’66. With the stage show When We Were Fab, the two wanted to capture a part of what those concerts meant.
“We want a way for those people who had seen The Beatles to relive it again, and [for] those who never got a chance to understand what the fuss was all about,” Weiss says.
This is not some cover band; the musicians are cast for not only their musical and vocal ability, but to look and act like The Beatles.
Weiss says the original Beatles concerts were about more than the music.
“We couldn’t hear them, not a note, but there was something unique about this mass hysteria, not the kind of hysteria that we experienced outside the stadium when it was over. [Fans] were running outside in the streets tearing their clothes off. While The Beatles were on stage, they were allowing [fans] to express themselves in ways people never did.”
Thus, the screaming — an excuse to unleash some pent-up frustration, emptiness, desire for change.
“The Beatles were a bellwether, people who had the cultural power to change what people were thinking and doing socially or at least given permission to think of behaving socially in a different way.”
When We Were Fab is a recreation covering four periods of the band’s history: 1) the Sullivan Beatles; 2) the Rubber Soul period with the turtlenecks, when the music became richer and more complex; 3) Sgt. Peppers; and 4) the Abbey Road period.
When The Beatles arrived, they were in banker suits, singing bubble-gum pop music about holding hands. Later, they changed their tune and adopted more politically aware lyrics on songs like “I am the Walrus” and “Yellow Submarine.” The Beatles soon dumped their businessmen attire for brightly colored jackets and acid trips.
 Another problem is that The Beatles wrote a lot of their music in the studio, without any consideration for how it would sound live.
“This is a trip through the history of the 1960s using The Beatles as the vehicles, as the car, if you will, to drive through time,” Weiss explains.
The world was changing culturally and politically, and The Beatles managed to ride it, capture it, foster it.
Stewart Sallo, leader of the band Hindsight (and publisher of Boulder Weekly), was in junior high around the time The Beatles reached their peak of popularity, and he remembers the importance of The Beatles, and their music, to his generation.
“The body of music was intricately connected to what was going on in the times during the ’60s, and it became a chicken-and-egg kind of thing. You had to wonder if Beatles music was influencing the times, or the times were influencing The Beatles, until pretty soon it became seamless. The truth is both were happening.”
Sallo says one of the reasons for forming Hindsight five years ago was because people still want to hear that kind of music.
“It gave us hope, the same way we’re experiencing a resurgence of hope with the current administration,” he says.
It also seems like the right time to recognize the importance of music as a tool for political dissent. It wasn’t an accident there was such a concerted effort to crucify the Dixie Chicks during the Bush administration. It sent a message to the music industry not to get too nostalgic about the ’60s protest songs and effectively silenced some mainstream musicians during the Iraq war.
“There was Will.I.Am,” Sallo points out, which is true.
His turning of an Obama speech into a piece of music became an Internet sensation, and seemed to capture the campaign’s message of “hope.”
Knowing Sallo was a fan, a promoter suggested his band ought to come out and jam with “The Beatles” during one of their rehearsals.
“It seemed like it was going to fall apart five or six times,” Sallo says about the rehearsal. “But it turned out to be pretty fun… almost felt like I was jamming back in my college dorm room.”
Especially when you’re rocking out with people who understand what made The Beatles so special.
On the BillWhen We Were Fab will play April 30–May 31 at the New Denver Civic Theatre, 721 Santa Fe Dr., Denver, 303-309-3773.
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