Beatle Fest - Day 3 - Give Peace a Chance

Beatle Fest Day 3

We sat in on Part 3 of Pattie Boyd’s interview with Martin Lewis. They discussed her time together with George and The Beatles in India. She also spoke of her days as a model and the fashion world in the 1960’s.

She told a funny story about John Lennon. John would go down to a certain clothing store in London and sit in the window like a mannequin to get reactions from the people passing by. This was during the height of Beatlemania. John had quite a sense of humor.



One of the highlights of the entire show was the on stage forum featuring Donovan, Spencer Davis, Billy J. Kramer and Mark Hudson. They sat on stage with acoustic guitars in an unplugged “Storytellers” format moderated by Martin Lewis.

They spoke of the influence of American roots music on The Beatles and themselves.
Donovan was into American folk and early blues as was Spencer Davis. To see and hear
the four of them on stage singing Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly songs together was amazing. A once in a lifetime event to be sure. Note to L.J. :Donovan did not play “Colours” on a 12 string.


In the evening, the “Liverpool” band once again put on an excellent show playing lots of Beatles classics and many songs off Sgt. Pepper and The White Album.

Donovan came out and gave another fantastic acoustic show opening with “Catch The Wind”, "Wear Your Love Like Heaven", "Happiness Runs", "Colours" and "Lalena". Later he played a song called “The Promise” that he has never released and he has only played live. Incredible!

“Liverpool” then joined Donovan on stage for an electric set which included “Sunshine Superman”, “Hurdy Gurdy Man”, “Mellow Yellow” and closed with the great “Atlantis”
The crowd went crazy. You should have been there.



Mark Hudson let the late night all star jam. Mark brought out Phil Volk aka “Fang”
from Paul Revere and the Raiders to play bass on “Slow Down” –a favorite of John Lennon’s.



The evening ended with a rousing “Hey Jude” with Donovan joining the rest of the cast and crew on stage for a moving sing along. It was a splendid time.





Lois and I had a great time at the Mirage Hotel. We really loved that nightime view from our room.





We enjoyed the great pool, fine food, friends and we got to hang for 3 days with some of the icons of our youth.



Priceless.

Beatle Fest - Day 2 - Imagine

Day 2 started out with breakfast at the pool, followed by a huge margarita, after which Lois required a 90 minute nap. This is night time view of the pool taken from our room.

On to the Fest, which started with an excellent presentation by Bruce Spizer talking about his new book “Solo Beatles on Apple Records”.

Following Bruce was photographer Nancy Lee Andrews who was in a long term relationship with Ringo Starr before he met and married Barbara Bach. She was interviewed by our friend Dennis Mitchell.

Later we listened to Part 2 of Pattie Boyd’s interview. She is quite fascinating and seemed to truly blush when Martin Lewis mentioned all the songs that had been written about her.These included “Something” and ”What Is Life” by George Harrison and “Layla” and “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton.

Next was an amazing talk by Donovan discussing his time spent in India with The Beatles. He also told the story of his guitar, Kelly. She was made by a luthier who built ukeleles for George Harrison. He performed the first song he wrote on her, The Promise. Donovan also treated us to a few songs other before his concert later in the evening.

Later we listened to Mark Hudson talk about writing the song “Living on the Edge” for Aerosmith. He had written the song in the style of John Lennon and sang some of it for us ala Lennon. When Mark demoed the song for Steven Tyler, he was so blown away by this he ran around screaming “Stop it! Stop it! Lennon’s in the house!”

Mark also told a story of how Elton John had taken him along with John Lennon and Harry Nilsson to an infamous gay bar in L.A. John, Elton and the rest were dancing to “When Will I See You Again” by the Three Degrees and “Dancing Queen “by Abba! I found this frightening. :)

“Liverpool” played another rocking set of classic Beatles tunes. They were great as always.

Liverpool was followed by a mesmerizing acoustic performance by Donovan. Donovan looks and sounds exactly the same as in 1968. I think he must have access to Austin Powers’ time machine. He was too amazing for words. (see the videos of "Catch the Wind", "Dear Prudence", "Wear Your Love Like Heaven" and "Hurdy Gurdy Man" at the bottom of this post)

Billy J. Kramer came out next. He was in fine voice and sang his classic hits.

Spencer Davis was next and gave an expanded performance including a slow blues take on “C.C. Rider”.

The show ended on a somber note when it was announced that the father of Carol Lapidos, who is one of the show’s founders, had just passed away. Liverpool closed the show with Imagine.

Our thoughts are with her and her family.

I hope there will be more great times to come tomorrow.

d.