Rain: The Beatles Experience Coming To Broadway

Rain: The Beatles Experience Coming To Broadway

A few years ago, Land of Punt was listening to a morning sports talk radio show. At the conclusion of that day’s show, the radio hosts performed a song parody.

Song parodies are a staple on morning radio but this particular one stayed with LOP. Not because it was funny (it wasn’t) but because it revealed the power of great music.

The radio hosts rewrote the lyrics to one of popular music’s most famous songs and then, if memory serves, sang their version a capella.

The song they were parodying was The Beatles’ “Yesterday.”

Now, neither one of these dopes could carry a tune, but it didn’t seem to affect the song. The melody of “Yesterday,” even at the mercy of two discordant throated imbeciles, still retained its emotional veracity, its potency, and its impact.

How great of a song is “Yesterday” that even when it’s being butchered it still has the power to inspire and stir the spirit.

Amazingly, The Beatles have a lot of songs like that.

That’s why after four decades, their music is still being explored and rediscovered through a variety of media. One such entity that’s keeping The Beatles music alive and well is the band RAIN.

Rain is a Beatles tribute band, or should we say THE Beatles tribute band.

They began in the 1970′s performing Beatles songs in various clubs on the West Coast. Then in 1979, they were used by Dick Clark for his film Birth of The Beatles.

In 1982, cast members of the Broadway show Beatlemania began to join the band and soon RAIN became an official offshoot of that production.

The lineup has changed a bit over the years, but the one constant is RAIN co-founder Mark Lewis. As the creative force behind the band, Lewis doesn’t actually portray a Beatle, instead he plays the keyboards off stage.

The members of Rain tour the country performing as The Beatles. They not only look like the Fab Four but they act like them too, copying their mannerisms and their style of performing.

The band goes through every stage of the Beatles’ mythology, from their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show all the way to their concert on the roof of Abbey Road studios–making the necessary costume and hair changes along the way.

Rain Lineup
Steve Landes as John Lennon
Joey Curatolo as Paul McCartney
Joe Bithorn as George Harrison
Ralph Castelli as Ringo Starr

Other Members
Graham Alexander
Mark Beyer
Joe Bologna
Doug Cox
Jim Irizarry
David Leon
Jimmy Pou
Mac Ruffing
Tom Teeley

The band prides itself on authenticity. They strive for perfect note-for-note duplication of every Beatle song they perform. RAIN is not just a bunch of actors holding instruments and sporting English accents. They are accomplished musicians and performers.

Furthermore, RAIN’s elaborate, multi-media concerts use no pre-recorded tracks.

Needless to say, they are billed as the “next best thing to seeing the Beatles live.” That may seem like a ridiculous statement since The Beatles have been defunct for 40 years, but there is some merit to this endeavor beyond the opportunity for pitiful baby-boomers to relive their youth.

The Beatles stopped touring halfway through their career and even when they were performing concerts, technology was so bad you could barely hear them. RAIN offer fans a chance to imagine what The Beatles might have been like as a touring band had conditions been more favorable.

While currently touring North America and selling tickets to a show called Rain: The Beatles Experience, the most successful tribute band in the world has recently announced plans for an 11-week run on Broadway.

Previews begin Oct. 18 with opening night scheduled for Oct. 26. Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles will run at the Neil Simon Theatre.

There will be no shows on Wednesdays but matinees on both Saturday and Sunday.

Songs Featured in RAIN

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