It was 50 Years ago today…

Photographs by Terry Miller

Rubber Revolver rocks Lucky Baldwin’s Trappiste Sunday night – Photos by Terry Miller

It was 50 years ago today….
Local lads come together for something special to honor The Beatles

By Terry Miller
Okay, I gotta admit…It’s Ringo who got me up on my first set of drums… I’m a lifelong Beatles’ music aficionado …even the good’ tribute’ bands set me harking back to the mother country and reminds me that my father gave away our Shea Stadium Beatle tickets in 1965. He told his two teenage sons who just arrived in America that he “ didn’t think his boys wanted to meet the Beatles. “ My brother and I chose not speak to our father for the rest of that decade when we found out he gave a way press credentials for Shea Stadium-we would have been backstage and met ‘em.
When I got over the shock of not meeting the lads from Liverpool , an old friend of mine, Mitch Weissman, who worked with me in a high school band in New York we played a lot of early Beatle songs, went on to play Paul McCartney in the original Beatlemania on Broadway. So I’m pretty familiar with Beatle harmonies and song structure.
However, Sunday night in Pasadena, I really didn’t know what to expect when I showed up at Lucky Baldwin’s Trappiste near PCC to hear ‘Rubber Revolver.’ They were supposed to be a five piece band who just happen to sound like, well – The Beatles.
When I got there, here are three guys, not dressed up like the ‘other’ tribute bands ( i.e. The Fab Four or Rain, etc.) They were tuning up as the crowd grew larger in the popular pub as I arrived.
“But wait –Where’s the bloody drummer” exclaimed one local teacher sitting at the bar. Good point, I thought to self!
Well Ringo ( aka Logan Shrewsbury) – love the name – apparently had the night off as did the fifth Revolver, Kenny Wood. Okay, so now how is one acoustic guitar plus bass and lead gonna pull this off?
I was getting worried…I can tell you. How can you do Beatles numbers well without a set of Ludwig’s providing the backbeat as masterfully as Ringo?
I was knocked for six! The three young lads: Aaron Powell – on bass and vocals, Brady Burch – vocals and guitar and Derek Kuntz – on lead guitar and vocals pulled off an enormous task effortlessly without drums or even that dreaded drum machine some use to replace real sticks and bones.
They kicked off with an energetic early number one hit ‘I saw her Standing There’ with brilliant harmonies that proved immediately that these guys were no slouches…They knew their stuff alright – they have studied every note, chord and nuance which set apart the Fab Four and rocketed them “to the top” as Lennon said.
Burch’s vocals are top-notch and passion filled. Combine that with some terrific guitar and great bass lines by Kuntz and Powell respectively and you gotta hide your love away cause these guys are very good!

The lesser known and mysterious “Girl” written by John Lennon was put into gear later in the evening with soothing melancholy. Lennon said that the fantasy girl in the song’s lyric was an archetype he had been searching for his entire life (“There is no such thing as the girl — she was a dream”) and finally found in Yoko Ono
Lucky Baldwin’s Trapisste’s delightful Manager Megan Giles and the ever-entertaining barkeep with perceptive musical taste, Sir Edwin ‘Foamy’-Sudds, Esquire, along with a small army of master servers and vixens like Jukebox Jasmine , Evocative Eve and Legendary Tatianna as well as our man Friday …the ever popular – Tea-Totaling Tom Tom who kept the amber nectar flowing down the trapdoors of about 100 dye-in-the-wool Beatle fans while we sat back and took that Magical Mystery Tour back in time.
One of the cool things about this pub is that all the barkeeps are really into good music. Perhaps none more so than Lola, aka Loren who just happens to be a big fan of the band’s bass player.
The old sing-along feeling of British pubs was back in full force. Except – this was different. Every song got better, the harmonies got stronger and the appreciation for the three lads grew exponentially.

: [wowslider id=”58″]

Everyone was singing (minus a few insufferable lushes who have absolutely no musical taste and rather bad flatulence.)
The two sets Rubber Revolver played captured the lifeblood of a band that changed all of us baby boomers and continues to be the most incredible portent the music world will ever see.
Seeing these three lads master some of the most complex vocal harmonies and carry it off with ease is a testament to me that not all young musicians swallow microphones, utter unintelligible lyrics as a computer blasts out some mindless automaton-like rhythm.
All you need is love of a great songwriting team like Lennon and McCartney and a deep indebtedness of the individual talents that made the fab four gel so incredibly well and survive the test of time.
Keep an eye out for these blokes ….They’re damn good!

More from Arts