Belleville’s Beatles ready to rock

By Barry Ellsworth, Belleville Intelligencer
Thursday, August 07, 2003

Belleville’s version of the Beatles are making a bee-line for Cleveland, Ohio, Friday, and a three-day centre-stage gig with a dozen of the world’s best Fab Four cover acts.

Co-sponsored by Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Abbey Road On The River is the top Beatles event in North America and will draw thousands of fans.

“Some of the premier Beatles acts in the world will be there,” said Andy Forgie, a vocalist and founder of the six-member All You Need Is Love tribute band. “We are the only act from Canada. We are all Bellevillians.”

The inaugural event was held last year and All You Need Is Love was there, as well.

“We are really honoured to be invited back,” he said.

The group is unique in that there are more than four members — representing John, Paul, George and Ringo.

The higher number allows the addition of keyboardist Francis Rose, and enables the band to recreate the more complex music of The Beatles later years, including songs like Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and Strawberry Fields Forever, as well as other works from the Revolver album to Abbey Road, Forgie said.

“We can do those songs live,” he said, adding it was that feature that led to their first engagement in Cleveland. Organizers scanned the Internet and found the All You Need Is Love website, were intrigued and a deal was struck, Forgie said. The band’s performance went over well with the 5,000 people in attendance at last year’s performance.

“The audience found it quite refreshing,” he said.

Another unique factor in the band’s favour — they don’t step into the individual roles of the Beatles, with no St. Pepper uniforms, no wigs, and so on.

“We were one of the few (bands) in existence that didn’t pretend to be the Beatles,” Forgie noted.

All You Need is Love will perform Friday night, and twice Saturday, including the grand finale Saturday evening.

“We are the house band,” Forgie said. “We are like the David Letterman band. It’s kind of fun. It’s a neat thing.”

The All You Need Is Love show has been together since the fall of 1999, when it was formed as a charity fund-raising act. Members include guitarist Mark Rashotte, Steve Smith on drums and vocals, base guitarist Vitas Slapkauskas, Al Haring on guitar and vocals, Rose and Forgie.

Sound technician Wayne McFaul, who owns Harmony Music Plus where the band held its last practice Wednesday before heading for Cleveland, is also an integral part of the show, Forgie said.

The band is grateful for all its fans in the Quinte area, he said. However, members felt their brand of tribute music had broader appeal and the Cleveland engagement is a sign that they were right.

“We believed there was something more for the show than just a local phenomenon,” he said.

There is at least one more milestone the band would like to reach, Forgie said.

Each fall, there is a five-day Beatlefest event at Liverpool, where The Beatles were born. All You Need Is Love is shooting for that stage.

“That would be the granddaddy,” Forgie said.