Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones Part II

[caption id="attachment_47803" align="alignnone" width="800"] The "Beatles vs. the Rolling Stones Battle of the Bands" at the Bay Street Theater in 2015. Michael Heller photos.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_47804" align="alignleft" width="300"] The "Beatles vs. the Rolling Stones Battle of the Bands" at the Bay Street Theater on Saturday, February 7th, 2015[/caption]

By Tim Sommer

We face enormous choices in 2016. In many ways, our options vary wildly, but there are also great similarities. This is both positive and negative, as different candidates speak to different parts of our soul. Certain candidates appeal to our sense of tradition and others to our desire for rebellion. These candidates require us to investigate fundamental questions about our beliefs; ideas that can be traced back to our earliest memories will come into play, yet the choices we make now will also effect us and our children for generations. Who knows, our choice may even be to make no choice at all.

Both sides will go head-to-head on February 5 and 6, when the annual Beatles vs. Stones concert event shakes the walls at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor.

“I'd say it is a tradition,” says Joe Lauro, leader of the Hoodoo Loungers and one of the prime movers behind the Beatles vs. Stones soiree (he’s also playing on the Stones side). “It’s one of those win-win situations in so much as all of the musicians participating were so inspired by those bands as kids, so it is a total gas to have a reason to really sit down and learn to play their music properly. It’s also a chance for the audience to see some of their favorite local performers playing music they love.”

Now, since it’s probably been a long time since any of us went to a Battle of the Bands – much less one featuring some of the most legendary music ever recorded – how does this very special event work?

Mr. Lauro, who is also a documentary producer and one of the world’s foremost archivists of filmed music, answers. “Each band leader selects the repertoire for the evening loosely based upon the theme – this year it's the ‘top ten hits.’ This year, each band will play an uninterrupted full set. Night one will feature music from years 1962-66, and night two 1967-1971. Since the Stones, obviously, went on for 40 years and counting longer than the Beatles, to retain some continuity we end in the early 70s.”

Another participant in the Bay Street Battle of the Culturally Behemoth Brits is local music legend and studio owner Mick Hargreaves, who will be playing acoustic guitar, harmonica, and doing some vocals on the Beatles side.

“With the Beatles stuff, it's always about the crafty chord changes,” Mr. Hargreaves notes. “That stuff runs the gamut from Tin-Pan alley to psychedelic weirdness, which is my favorite period of the band. I especially like George Harrison's use of what he called ‘the naughty chords,’ diminished/augmented type things. You'd be hard-pressed to find that stuff in current ‘pop’ music. There's always something to learn.”

How would it be different if Mick (who runs Lantern Sound in Manorville, one of Suffolk County’s most creatively fertile recording environments) was playing on the Stones side this year?

“With the Rolling Stones stuff, you just pay attention to whatever Keith is doing, and it all flows from there,” says Mr. Hargreaves. “Those bass parts almost play themselves. Now, with the McCartney bass parts, together with what he sang at the same time, that's something else entirely.”

How do East End audiences react to the event?

“The audiences in Sag Harbor love to dance and rock out,” says Mr. Lauro. “They react accordingly to tunes that give them the nostalgic familiarity and are danceable. So, let’s just say ‘I am the Walrus’ or ‘Revolution # 9’ will not be in the set list.”

“It's all about the dancing at these shows,” agrees Mr. Hargreaves, “Which rules out ‘All You Need Is Love.’ That’s in 7/8 time, so the audience would wandering about on the dance floor as if they just found out their dog died.”

Any musician who plays the music of McCartney, Lennon, Jagger, and Richards will tell you that it’s a great learning experience when you study and reproduce the work of the great masters. As Will Lee, the ex-David Letterman Band bassist who leads The Fab Faux, one of the world’s foremost live performers of Beatles music, once told the Sag Harbor Express, “When you first decide that you’re going to try a Beatles song with some other musician, you study the music and you get into it as deeply as your ears and mind will fathom. Once you’ve performed it, then you can go back and now you are allowed to uncover the next layer of what you’ve missed all this time before.

Can Mr. Lauro put into words what he’s learned by performing the work of the Beatles?

“What we have all learned about the music of the Beatles is the complexity within its simplicity. The songs are all pretty simple, but it's all the effects, harmonies and layering they did to create their sound, particularly in the post 1965 years. It's also a challenge to get that to sound right and try to sing as sweetly as they did...and it’s especially hard to get it right as they were in their early twenties, and most of us have 20-plus years on that.”

Finally, do the players themselves take sides?

“I think we do…I guess it’s based on who is playing what,” Mr. Lauro says. “It also goes back to the age-old Stones vs. Beatles rivalry. But in retrospect I think all of the musicians would be happy to play in either band.”

“The Beatles were ahead of the Stones, chronologically. They're still ahead of the Stones, alphabetically. It’s a tough call,” Mr. Hargreaves says. “When Apple re-released the entire Beatles catalog en masse, my dad bought everything on vinyl. It's all his fault. I was the kid laying on the shag rug with the Lafayette headphones, studying the vocal harmonies, and trying to figure out who played what, which I'm still doing! But then “Tattoo You” by the Stones came out, and I picked up the electric bass, basically learning that instrument by wearing out that record. My guitar playing more closely resembles Keith Richards than anyone over in Pepperland, so I'm kind of a fence-rider in that aspect.”

“All the Hits – The Beatles and the Rolling Stones Tribute Concerts” take place on February 5 and ^h at The Bay Street Theatre, Corner of Bay and Main streets in Sag Harbor. Tickets are $25. For more information, or tickets call the Bay Street Theater box office at (631) 725-9500 or email boxoffice@baystreet.org.