The Fab Five make Liverpool thrive

From syracuse.com
Mark Bialczak, Staff writer :: 7/2/04

The history hanging over the room Friday night at the Holiday Inn Convention Center in Liverpool certainly was significant. Most of the folks in the packed room were around when the Beatles came to America for the first time to go on "The Ed Sullivan Show" 40 years ago. So they came to the show, billed by Syracuse radio station WSEN as "From Liverpool U.K. to Liverpool, U.S.A.," to celebrate the British Invasion with all of their might.

But a cool thing happened when Syracuse band The Fab Five belted out two sets of Beatles tunes and more, then backed up Terry Sylvester of The Hollies and Joey Molland of Badfinger.

The music was great in the here-and-now.

When Sylvester sang The Hollies' hit "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress," the room throbbed because the song still pulsed with energy.

When Molland sang Badfinger's hit "No Matter What," fans swayed along because the beat still moved them.

Sylvester's voice was a little rougher around the edges than in the days when "The Air That I Breathe" and "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" first carried across America's airwaves, but he had more than enough star power to dazzle.

Molland's voice sounded amazingly similar to the days when "Come and Get It" and "Day After Day" made fans wonder "is that the Beatles?"

Yet Central New York's stars, the five guys in The Fab Five, truly made the whole night work.

Guitarist-singers Gary Frenay, Arty Lenin and Dave Novak, bassist Paul Davie and drummer Dave Miller were dead-right with their Beatles harmonies and pretty near perfect with the stuff they played from The Zombies, The Animals and Gerry and the Pacemakers, too.

"We're The Fab Five, and we don't do makeovers," Davie told the crowd in a wink-of-the-eye to the new generation's Fab Five, the crew in the TV show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy."

But it was a crowd more familiar with the Fab Four.

After that first set, the fivesome pulled off a great idea with style. They strung together the songs the Liverpool boys played on "The Ed Sullivan Show" Feb. 9, 16 and 23, 1964, and Sept. 12, 1965.

As they warmed the room with "All My Loving," "I Saw Her Standing There," "This Boy," "Twist and Shout," "Yesterday" and more, it was easy to close your eyes and imagine John, Paul, George and Ringo earning all those shrieks from teen-age girls four decades ago.

Then, with the help of drummer Tommy Allen, who drove up from New York City to join his old bandmates from The Flashcubes and Screen Test, Frenay and Lenin, the Central New York gang joined Molland and then Sylvester.

They practically out-Badfingered Badfinger and out-Hollied The Hollies so strong were their renditions.

Molland and Sylvester generously complimented the local crew, deservedly so. When The Fab Five travels to London in August as one of seven U.S. bands to participate in International Beatle Week, U.K. fans who catch their act in the famous Cavern Club should be impressed, too.