Faux British Invasion

Beatlemania Now performs at Havana in New Hope, Pa.

By: Kara Fitzpatrick

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Beatlemania Now (from left: "Ringo," "George," "Paul" and "John) will present an "unplugged" tribute to the Fab Four April 17.


   Feb. 9, 1964 is the day Scot Arch’s life changed.
   Mr. Arch was one of more than 73 million viewers who watched the Beatles’ first performance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
   "I just took in the whole show in every way, shape and form," says the founder of Beatles tribute band Beatlemania Now. "That was what inspired me to be a musician."
   Beatlemania Now is not a cover band, Mr. Arch assures. Rather, it’s a show, an experience, a way to take yourself back to those days four decades ago when modern rock ‘n’ roll was emerging from its prenatal status.
   Each member of the quartet that is Beatlemania Now has mastered the role of one of the "Fab Four" — Mr. Arch as John Lennon, Richard Vacca as Paul McCartney, John Perry as George Harrison and Eric Smith as Ringo Starr.
   On April 17, Beatlemania Now will come to Havana in New Hope, Pa., for an unplugged performance — a format that is more intimate, says Mr. Arch, and gives the characters more of an opportunity to interact with the audience. Clapping and singing along is encouraged, he says.
   At unplugged shows, "we get a chance to be much more off the cuff and joke around with the people," says Mr. Arch, a Delaware County, Pa., resident.
   What is it about the Beatles that warrants a tribute so attuned to the real thing? There are only a handful of artists — such as Elvis Presley — that continue to transfix American culture years after their prime.
   Simple. Their carefree, and often complex, songs are ageless, Mr. Arch believes.
   "The Beatles’ music is just great, great music that could have been written at any time," Mr. Arch says. "A lot of music you hear on the radio today is modeled after Beatles music. The music is so cross-generational."
   Since 1981, Mr. Arch has been traversing the states as John Lennon, but his other players have fluctuated. "I would like to think as people came and went that the cast has improved," he says.
   What has resulted is a foursome, Mr. Arch says, "at this point, who look like, who act like, who sound like the people they are supposed to be."
   John Perry (George) has been a musician all of his life. "When I was in bands in high school, people always told me I sounded like a Beatle," Mr. Perry says.
   But it wasn’t until the early 1990s that he took that advice to heart and began playing with Beatles tribute bands. He joined Beatlemania Now about three years ago.
   For Mr. Arch, Mr. Perry and the other band members, the Beatles have had a profound affect on their existence.
   "Everyone listened to Beatles music growing up," says Mr. Perry. "The music of the Beatles is so woven into our culture."
   And Beatlemania Now is giving it their all to make sure that people have the chance to relive that euphoria that was attached to the four lads from Liverpool.
   Mimicking the famous personalities, at least for Mr. Arch, has come naturally. The Ed Sullivan performances, he says, taught him most of what he needed to know about the way of the Beatles.
   "Though I have watched a lot of tape," he says, "just watching that show left me with all the characteristics, sucking it in as an impressionable youth."
   And the foursome can almost guarantee that when you see them, you may feel as if you have boarded a time machine.
   "It’s, hopefully, as though you were watching all four of the chaps, all four of the lads," says Mr. Arch in his flawless British accent.
   "I think some of the things we try to inject are intimacy and connecting with the audience to give them a chance to get lost in that time," says Mr. Perry. "We really, really try to get into character."
   And when they say get into character, they don’t simply mean giving themselves a Beatlesque hairdo, employing a half-hearted smile and faking their best accent. At some shows, they undergo as many as seven costume changes and at all performances, they play the instruments that the real band would have had on stage.
   Sometimes using up to 17 different guitars in one evening, the band also uses the same drum kit Ringo would have pounded and the same amps to distribute the sounds. The authentic instruments are used not only to enhance the audience experience, says Mr. Arch, but also for "the unique sound that those instruments have."
   The costumes as well represent much effort on the part of Beatlemania Now, a collaborative that put on more than 100 shows last year from coast to coast and out of the country. People as far away as South America crave the carefree sounds of the Beatles.
   Mr. Arch, who owns dozens of books portraying his favorite band through all of their fashion phases, has had costumes custom-made for his tribute.
   "When the Beatles appeared on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show,’ they were wearing black suits with a black velvet collar. We’ve had those made," he says.
   Among others, the band sports costumes emulating the style from the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album — a musical effort that "changed the face of modern music, it was totally different and totally new," Mr. Arch says.
   The emulation goes beyond costumes and guitars, though. It seems to have been injected into their personalities.
   "I do get that a lot that our personalities match our characters," says Mr. Perry, classifying Mr. Arch as "boisterous" and Mr. Smith, like Ringo, as "the clown" of the band. Mr. Vacca emulates the heartthrob Paul very well and, Mr. Perry says, thinks of himself as Beatlemania Now’s quietest member.
   Although the unplugged format uses fewer guitars and costume changes, Mr. Arch says the performance is guaranteed to bring fans alike into a state of euphoria — and novices to the musical craze hooked on the tunes.
   Mr. Perry recalls a performance in West Point, N.Y. "It was intimate, maybe 150 people at a small dinner theater," he says. Normally, he notes, after playing the first song, people will whisper and smile, but not that night.
   "At West Point there were people in the front row crying," Mr. Perry says, recalling how they had been overtaken by the memories.
   Beatlemania Now has made an effort over the years to master a majority of the band’s tunes.
   The Beatles wrote hundreds of songs, says Mr. Arch. "I am sure we know at least 200, 250 songs. We’ve really done most of them, I’m sure."
   But, he says, it would be impossible to perform all the popular hits during one performance.
   "There are so many, it’s hard to get them all in. You try to get all the favorites in during the evening, but you just can’t," he says. "They had so many great, great songs."
   Of those songs, the John Lennon impersonator has a special place in his musical heart for "I Want to Hold Your Hand" — "It’s really just the nostalgia that’s attached with the song."
   Nostalgia is something that lingers heavily in the room when Beatlemania Now is present.
   "You’ll never get to see the real guys on stage together, so to… play the part and let their suspended disbelief take over — it’s really a priceless job," Mr. Perry says.
   Will the aura that surrounds the Beatles ever dissolve? Will the millions of faithful fanatics ever stop spinning the groundbreaking efforts by the iconic American band?
   Not in the eyes of Mr. Arch.
   "I have a feeling that it will continue," he says. And as long as it does carry on, fans will flock to Beatlemania Now for the next best thing.
Beatlemania Now will perform at Havana, 105 S. Main St., New Hope, Pa., April 17, 6, 8:30 p.m. Tickets cost $15. For information, call (215) 862-5501. On the Web: www.havananewhope.com. Beatlemania Now on the Web: www.beatlemanianow.com