A Letter From "Mandy (Mal Dease) Johnson"

I'll Be Back

When my husband suggested several months ago that we go to see some Beatle impersonators, I was outraged. “I’m a Liverpool girl. Surely you’re joking!” I said incredulously. “I was there. I knew them. I went to Paul’s 21st birthday party. I was an extra in “A Hard Day’s Night. They got our band an audition for the Star Club in Hamburg. Imposters? No way! It would be sacrilege!” Case closed.

A few days ago, he played an audio clip of a Beatle song from the Internet as I walked into our office. I said knowingly, “Now, that’s John. The real thing. Note the distinctive accent.” My husband replied, “That’s ‘1964 The Tribute” and with that, we bought tickets for the show.

Rams Head On Stage in Annapolis accommodates an audience of around two hundred people. It has a nightclub atmosphere and has played host to quite a few British groups from the sixties era, groups like The Zombies and The Searchers. Its ambience, great food and prime location in Maryland’s capital are a plus for anyone wanting a special night out. However, for anyone in the American audience who saw The Beatles, circa 1964, it’s a far cry from the hysteria of the British musical invasion, when The Fab Four captured the world’s attention.

On August 31st, 2005  four men in Beatle suits and Beatle boots, shaking those inimitable haircuts bounced onto the stage and for a moment I thought it was The Beatles. In the dimly lit room, now crowded with people who looked like my parents in 1964, a bizarre experience was taking shape. “A drinking crowd to be sure,” quipped John. This was a transformation, a magical mystery tour de force. John, Paul, George and Ringo, reunited for one night only at the Rams Head. Suddenly, there’s a shadow hanging over me, and it all comes back, forty-one years melt away. I shake my head in disbelief as I listen to them sing, wondering if they were offended because I was mouthing, “No! This can’t be true!”

 I close my eyes, then open them quickly just to make sure and stare at the musicians on stage. The lads were still there, singing “Love Me Do”, the Beatle’s first release in Liverpool. Not a smash hit in the UK at that time, but it made an impression in London and elsewhere as the rest of the world began to take notice. I remembered walking through a dense snowstorm in perishing cold Liverpool over forty years ago, just to play that 45 rpm with my best friend, another Beatle-maniac. They burst into “From Me to You’ then “She Loves You”, working the audience, plying their trade. “I Want To Hold Your Hand” and “Can’t Buy Me Love”. Is this a flashback? I’m sure I’m hallucinating by this point. And not a second time, but a third and fourth, I stare at George in disbelief. He looks very much alive, still the master of the guitar, and Ringo, with more hair than the last time I’d seen him perform, still in the background, pounding away on the drums to “I Feel Fine” and singing his heart out on “Act Naturally. Once again. I glance at an ever-smiling Paul, the heart of the Beatles and John, the group’s soul, not really gone at all, with the caustic Scouse wit, his city is also famous for. I know The Beatles haven’t performed together since 1966 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco; two of them are, to put it bluntly in Liverpudlian vernacular, “very dead indeed,” and this is Annapolis. Yet I’m here in a nightclub, jam packed despite the short notice of the booking, listening to what certainly appears to be a Beatle singing “This Boy”, and it is truly unbelievable. No mere impersonation this; “1964 The Tribute” is so much more than the name implies. 

“I’ll Follow The Sun”, “And Your Bird Can Sing”, “Paperback Writer”, “Ticket To Ride”, the raunchy “Day Tripper” and the all too rarely heard, “Slow Down”. They’re not just loyal to an arrangement, these lads have become The Beatles since they stepped out on stage and I feel like I’m in a time warp. They begin “Yesterday”; I wonder if they knew the song had the dubious title of  “Scrambled Eggs” when it was first written. Now we’re rocking to “Long Tall Sally” and they don’t have to ask the audience to participate. Moms, dads, grandparents though we may be, we don’t need an invitation to “Twist and Shout” or to sing with the best sing along song in the world, “Yellow Submarine”. We’re still the Beatle Generation and feeling fine.

Suddenly they mention my name, kindly responding to an email and a request. I close my eyes again, but can’t stop the tears as they begin; “There are places I remember, in my life, though some have changed,” a song written for abstract expressionist artist Stuart Sutcliffe, John’s best friend who died as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage. “In My Life” is the song that I most identify with, now away from Liverpool, a place and time always in my thoughts. Retrospect. That’s what this concert is all about, retrospect. “A Hard Days Night”, Ringo’s idea for a film title. “Eight Days A Week” from the second film. “Help”, which was almost called “Eight Arms To Hold You”. “The one in color,” ad-libs John, the accent never failing him.

Paul reminisces about the early days at “The Cavern” and my mention of it in my email. I’m thrilled, and as an encore amidst the cheers, they play a little known Beatle gem from those Cavern days called, “Leave My Kitten Alone”. This is The Cavern not The Rams Head and I don’t want to leave the party.

All too soon, the show is over maybe it’s time for a quick reality check. Then they’re back, after a second curtain call and two standing ovations. And they’re gone! “You can’t do that,” I say, shouting as the crowds form around them off stage. Autograph hunters and well-wishers surround them; clearly, these lads have a unique following of their own. We finally meet and to my complete surprise, I find they are all Americans and I don’t care at all. They’ve made the magic, the music lives on in 2005 and for any other performances, I’ll be back, without question. This was more than an offering to a generation starved of good music; It was brilliant, and I didn’t have to “turn left at Greenland” to find it. 

By Marilyn Dease Johnson