I wouldn’t know an Xbox from a PlayStation if you smacked me upside
the head with one, so I haven’t the slightest idea how “The Beatles
Rockband” game works. I was curious enough to watch some of the
animated videos, however, and they are wonderful. Besides, if I want to
play a Beatles song, I’ll mess it up on real guitar like everybody
else. But it’s amazing to me that 40 years after they broke up, the
Beatles are the hottest, cutting-edge group going. Consider that the
remastered CDs, prepared for release to coincide with the “Rockband”
game, have already sold 2.2 million copies — in a marketplace
that barely sells CDs anymore. They topped the Billboard charts
yet again, and the Las Vegas Cirque du Soleil “Beatles Love” show is
sold out forever.
My wife Melody and I were surfing channels on a recent Sunday
afternoon when we came across The Beatles Anthology on VH1. Six
hours later, we wondered how the time flew by so quickly. We concluded
that the first couple of years of Beatlemania were the best and last
innocent times we knew. In 1965, LBJ was sending half a million men to
Vietnam, and by the time the Beatles reached Memphis in 1966, the
emerging evangelical movement was ready to crucify John Lennon for
saying the Fab Four were more popular than Jesus. All those pictures
you saw with people holding signs saying “Beatles Go Home” were taken
in Memphis, where they held a counter-Beatles rally and concert while
the lads played the Mid-South Coliseum. I was there when the cherry
bomb was tossed from the upper balcony, and John Lennon jumped as if he
had been shot.
The Beatles played two shows in Memphis, and there were still
tickets left unsold. Had I known that, I would have attended both
shows. But I saw the Beatles, and despite the pandemonium, I also heard
the Beatles; and it was a religious experience.
So many moments in my life are punctuated by Beatle songs. The first
time I heard “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” I was driving east on Walnut
Grove and immediately took a left on Mendenhall and headed for Pop
Tunes on Summer to buy the single (which I still have in the original
dust cover). I can tell you where I was sitting in Knoxville the first
time I heard “Day Tripper” and wished I was still in a band. Melody
favors “Norwegian Wood” and insists that if I outlive her, “In My Life”
must be played at the memorial service. I was thinking of “Nowhere Man”
for mine, but I figure it’s too self-deprecating, so I’ll settle for
“The End.” And during the multi-year run of my lost and lamented radio
show, “The Psychedelicatessen,” I always started the program with two
Beatles songs, just to begin where it all began. My life would have
been immeasurably less interesting without the Fab Four in it, and I am
grateful.
George Harrison was still alive during the taping of the
Anthology, and there was a scene toward the end when the
surviving three were discussing the impossibility of a Beatles reunion.
Responding to a suggestion that Julian Lennon replace John, Paul said,
“Why would we wish to put him in the middle of this?”
It’s better to “Let It Be” and savor the memories of a remarkable
era. The “Rockband” game offers memories in the making for young fans
who weren’t alive when the Beatles ruled the world, and its popularity
indicates it’s possible a new wave of Beatlemania is in the air. I
don’t intend to start playing video games at my age, but I’m sure happy
that “Rockband” Beatles is there. If I had teenagers, their Christmas
presents would be already chosen.
My new show-biz idea is to start a band called Sons of Beatles.
Ringo has two sons, Zak and Jason Starkey, who are both drummers; Zak,
most notably, with the Who. Consequently, the Sons of Beatles could
have double drummers, like the Allman Brothers. Both Sean and Julian
Lennon are artists and singers, with Julian showing a prodigious talent
for songwriting. Dani Harrison, George’s son, is a singer and
guitarist, and surely one of Paul’s children, maybe James, can be
taught to play bass, if he doesn’t already know how. Put them all under
the control of George Martin’s son, Giles, who was instrumental in
assembling “The Beatles Rockband,” and you have a phenomenon waiting to
happen. I would certainly like to see it, even if they were lousy. But
there’s too much nascent talent there for that to happen. Since Brian
Epstein left no progeny, I will volunteer for the manager’s position.
That’s okay, fellows. You don’t have to thank me.
