Gyrate to the best of Beatles

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Beatlemania is back. The capital city will gyrate to some of the best by the Beatles - often dubbed the best rock band ever to have climbed a stage - on October 21, as the city-based ‘Baby Boomers: Hard Days Night’ organises a tribute to the 1960s’ musical sensation.

The three-and-a-half-hour programme, organised at the Travancore Hall, South Park Hotel, will see 15 to 20 hits by the Beatles followed by performances from the audience, said Tomy Cherian of Baby Boomers: HDN. ‘’The Beatles songs will be presented by 12th Bar, a band based in the city. All the big hits will be performed,’’ Cherian said.

Bands like the Beatles did have a frenzied following in Thiruvananthapuram in the 60s, 70s and 80s, the decades when music CDs and YouTube were still unheard-of. Beatles aside, Rolling Stones, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd and Queen used to be quite popular, he said. “Note, all of them were British bands, not American. As for us, it was just the radio and the LP records in those days. The latter you could get only at three or four places in Thiruvananthapuram, all of which have vanished now. The places were Jacob’s, Natarajan and Sons, Manickyam Pillai and Sons near Ayurveda College and Paico near Press Road,” he recalls.

Fans would also tune into programmes like BBC World Service’s Rock Salad. In those days, they gathered most of their info on rock bands from a handful of publications, primarily the Junior Statesman which used to publish posters of stars like Jimi Hendrix. “Beatles were the best. They experimented with a lot of musical genres, including Indian,”  Cherian said. Remember ‘Norwegian Wood’ (the Beatles song released in 1965) with its sitar riffs?

As their name suggests, Baby Boomers - they prefer to be called a ‘gathering’ - consists of people born between 1945 and 1960. On October 21, the Beatles songs will be followed by performances from the audience, but that comes with a rider; you may sing non-Beatles songs, but only English songs and that too from the 60s, 70s or 80s. So no rap please. The programme will be held from 7 pm to 10.30 pm. For more details, contact Tomy Cherian on 9947289036.