Beatles get back in Roswell Cultural Arts

Tribute band performs Sat. Oct. 11 at 8pm
Geoff Smith :: northfulton.com (GA, USA):: 7 October 2003

Still miss the Beatles? For one night, and that is one night only, Beatles fans have a chance to get as close to the real thing as they ever will. The premier Beatles’ tribute band in the country, The British Invasion, comes together at the Roswell Cultural Arts Center.

The band will play 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 11. Band-member Bryan Wilson, who portrays John Lennon and is not related to the Beach Boys, said the show will begin in 1963 when the Beatles released "Please, Please Me" and end in 1968 with songs from their final album "Let It Be."

The British Invasion has been together since 1996, but has its roots in the play, "Beatlemania" that ran on Broadway in the late 1970s and 1980s. Today the band has a full-time job playing at Disney’s Epcot in Orlando, Fla., six days a week (or is that eight days a week?).

All the members are big fans of the legendary moptops. Wilson joined the band in 2000 and is a self-described "Beatle Head," saying the first songs he learned when he picked up a guitar were by the Beatles.

The two-hour show will take the audience from the Fab Four’s beginnings to their eventual break-up, going through three costume changes. A large video screen will show images with a narrative of what was going on in the world and with the band during the turbulent ‘60s.

"And let there be no mistake, when the band is performing," Wilson said, "they are the Beatles, accents and personalities included.

"The first set is high energy with the monster hits, then it’s fun to get into the Sgt. Pepper outfits," Wilson said.

"It’s really neat to kind of be John Lennon through the whole show watching him go from a smiling, fresh face of energy to a guy that kind of mellows out."

Wilson doesn’t have a favorite Beatle era or song. The mood of the audience will bring out the songs he enjoys playing the most. So each performance is different.

One of the hard parts in putting the show on was finding costumes for the Abbey Road and Let It Be albums, because the Beatles never toured for those albums.

"They wore the black suits in their early years, the crazy Sgt. Pepper’s outfits in the middle, but in the end they really just wore T-shirts and jeans," Wilson said.

And T-shirts and jeans are not really theatrical. But the music certainly is. Tickets for the lower level are $22, and upper level tickets are $18. They can be purchased by calling the ticket office at 770-641-1260.