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.