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Four to bring Beatles to life
May 13, 2009 10:30am
IT was the beginning of the end for the Beatles, but 41 years later the band's White Album will enjoy a new life in the hands of four Aussie rockers.
Singers Josh Pyke, The Living End's Chris Cheney, You Am I frontman Tim Rogers and Phil Jamieson from Grinspoon will perform the Fab Four's celebrated double album at a series of concerts in August, backed by a 17-piece band.
Australian promoter Tim Woods came up with the idea to stage the tour simply because he wanted to hear the songs from his favourite Beatles album played live -- something the Liverpool band never did.
Yesterday in Melbourne the four lead vocalists were trying to decide who would sing what from the 29 songs they will perform, including Birthday, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Back in the USSR and Dear Prudence. Only one track, the eight-minute electronic ramble Revolution 9, will be left off the set list.
"We are all so different as artists that we're all going to have different favourite tunes," Cheney said.
The four singers will alternate on lead vocals, but plan to harmonise together on a lot of the material.
"There are so many great harmonies going on there so we would be mad not to do them," said Cheney.
"It will take a bit of work. It's no small feat that we are attempting to do this. It's so different to what I'm doing on a daily basis with The Living End."
The White Album, or The Beatles as it was also known, was recorded in 1968 when relationships among the four members of the band were at a low ebb. It was released in November that year.
Rarely were all four Beatles in the same room during its making and the album displays the individual songwriting of each one.
"I love the earthiness to that record," Cheney said. "It's so raw. More so on that record, you can hear the different personalities on each song. Before that you could kind of tell which one was a Lennon and which one was a McCartney, but on the White Album it's so evident, because they were recording a lot of them separately anyway.
"The crazy thing is that it sounds so well performed. It doesn't sound like they are just knocking them out in the studio. There's a lot of ad-libbing going on that normally you would only get from playing the songs hundreds and hundreds of times, which they wouldn't have done."
The
ey guys chekc this out! it just came up on the Net here in Oz. these guys are all from well known Aussie bands. should be good.
