Don't Rain On My Hit Parade

The Beatles tribute band Rain played NJPAC yesterday afternoon. The five members of Rain can play, but the show, with its slavish impersonations and onslaught of strobes and smoke and flower-power visuals, indulges in something the Beatles had no truck with: schlock.

You knew it would be a long afternoon when the lights went down and a black & white video of an Ed Sullivan impersonator appeared on the two video screens on either side of the stage. Elvis Presley was never as spasmodic as this Ed Sullivan was introducing (by name) Rain, but you weren't sure whether this was supposed to be parody or whether it was meant to evoke the idiosyncratic variety show host for those who never saw him.

There certainly weren't many people that young in the audience. Later in the show, the band got the audience to join in the chorus of "Hey Jude," first calling on "everyone," then "everyone over 19," then "everyone 18 and under." The first two got a respectable and very audible response, but when he called for the kids, the hall virtually went silent, then burst into laughter. Point taken.

When the lights came up at the start of the show, Rain kicked off with irresistible versions of "I Feel Fine" and "I Saw Her Standing There." What we saw standing there were Beatles look-alikes in stovepipe pants, skinny ties and mop tops. Except, of course, the faces were all wrong. The drummer tick-tocked his head back and forth like Ringo, but to me these shenanigans, and others yet to come, simply demeaned the music.

Later on, the curtain went down, 60's newsreel footage played on the video screens, and the lights came up on Rain in a "Revolver" era look. The next change brought them back in psychedelic Sgt. Pepper's outfits and fake facial hair. By this point it was necessary to add a fifth musician on keyboards and synthesizers to serve up the astonishing sounds of that album. But the showy silliness of Rain mandates the illusion that only the Fab Four are onstage. So the fifth musician played, literally, in the dark, wearing a black suit and black turtleneck. He did get introduced once during the set, and joined in the curtain call at the end, but his contributions gave little cause to cheer.

His synthesized strings and horns sounded almost real, but were laughable compared to the way the Fab Faux, the peerless Beatles cover band, handles those instruments--that is, by actually bringing violinist, cellist, harpist and a beefy horn and reed section onto the stage.

The Fab Faux also is comprised of five musicians, but every one is an equal and every one is on stage as himself, very much in the present, not as a nostalgia trip. The greatness of the Beatles' music survives nostalgic treatment, but the true dimensions of its greatness can only be shown by musicians devoted to showing how relevant and compelling the music remains today. That's the miracle, not four guys in long hair wigs and psychedelic bandleader coats stepping out from behind the microphone urging the crowd to sing along.

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Tags: NJPAC | Newark | Fab Faux | Beatles | The Fab Faux | Rain

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