Review: Bootleg Beatles at Grassington Festival

THE Bootleg Beatles were formed in 1980 and grew out of the musical Beatlemania where the four founding members of the group had performed in the roles of John, Paul, George and Ringo. The popularity of the band grew over the years and their tours became longer and the venues larger. There have been a number of changes of personnel over the last 35 years but only eleven musicians in total have played the four roles.

On 30 January 1999, the band played on the rooftop of 3 Savile Row, London, former residence of the Beatles' Apple Corps company, recreating the Beatles final public live performance which took place on the same rooftop 30 years earlier.

They were one of the headline acts at Grassington Festival last week where they put on a dazzling display for the capacity audience. The show is split into four main parts. Part One is the early years as The Fab Four during 1963 and 1964, the years that "Beatlemania” conquered the world. Part Two takes the audience to the USA for the performances at Shea Stadium in 1965 and The Beatles final tour in 1966 after which they finished touring and became purely a “studio band".

After the interval the Bootleg Beatles played what is in my opinion the best part of the show when in Part Three they recreate on stage the Sgt Pepper album and also the Magical Mystery Tour from 1967 which they term as "The psychedelic explosion". The Beatles never played any of these songs live (apart from Paul McCartney during some of his Wings and solo tours) but today with the modern technology and the five-piece orchestra they use, the Bootlegs manage to let the audience hear what it perhaps would have been like to have heard the Beatles play some of these songs live.

The final part of the show - Part Four – are the final three years of The Beatles career from 1968 to 1970 and featured songs from The White Album, Abbey Road and also the rooftop concert. During each of these eras the band are dressed in appropriate costumes relative to the period in question.

The current line up of Adam Hastings as John, Steve White as Paul, Steve Hill as George and Gordon Elsmore as Ringo (who has just joined the band this year) are in my opinion one of the best tribute bands around. Having seen The Beatles live 52 years ago (seen but not heard due to the amount of screaming from the girls in the audience at The Odeon in Leeds) I have been a massive fan ever since and the Bootlegs are as close to the original sound as one is going to experience. A great show, taking me back in time half a century.

by John Burland