Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Bistrica pri Tržiču / Gorenjska plaža (amphitheater) / Slovenia
Concert date: 11.10.2014
Attendance: 500
Ticket price: 0,00€ (free entry!)
HELP! A Beatles Tribute Band has been a fixture of the Slovenian music scene for years. They’re constantly on the road, which is no surprise given that they play the legacy of probably the most important rock band in human history. But even though the guys are always on stage, and despite my own long track record of hitting (way too) many gigs, a string of circumstances had always kept me from catching HELP! play the Beatles classics live. Then that »fateful« free Saturday night finally rolled around. And a free gig, too, at the renovated Tržič swimming pool, nestled in the heart of Gorenjska. The new complex is now called Gorenjska plaža and has a gorgeous amphitheater that, stage included, is perfect for frequent gigs by bands of every genre.
HELP! A Beatles Tribute Band is a quartet (what else could it be!) of an American-Slovenian alliance, who have been working and living in Slovenia for years. Bandleader Ernie Mendillo (HELP!’s Paul McCartney) teamed up with fellow American Robert McKenzie (HELP!’s John Lennon) and two excellent Slovenian musicians: Žiga Stanonik on guitar (HELP!’s George Harrison) and drummer Gašper Oblak (HELP!’s Ringo Star). The band hit the stage around nine in the evening! They were met instantly with a wave of raucous, emotional reactions from the crowd. A bunch of young moms and dads with playful, rowdy kids chasing each other down front – from young families to »local old-timers«, to youngsters and teenagers armed with joints of »sweetly stuffed leafy goodness«, and every other soul from every generation in between. HELP! A Beatles Tribute brings absolutely everyone under one roof. All generations. That’s just the evergreen nature of The Beatles’ legacy.
In the first half the band mostly played material from The Beatles’ early »pre-psychedelic« era, and in the second part, once they’d changed into gray jackets, classics from the more »mature« compositional era of those one-of-a-kind, unrepeatable Liverpudlians rang out too. If we run a quick comparison of the original with the »fake«, here are a few observations. The band has studied the backing harmonies very nicely, and what’s interesting is that McKenzie (the man filling Lennon’s shoes) comes closer to McCartney with the basic color of his voice than Mendillo does, strapped into his »violin« Hofner bass (in the McCartney role). The overall vocal pitch is lower than on the originals. You just have to make peace with that, so in the highest registers the harmonies occasionally »creaked«. Mendillo also isn’t a lefty like McCartney, or the guy who could play a bass both right- and/or left-handed, but that’s a minor nitpick. And a passing glance makes it clear that at least both Americans are wearing Beatles wigs, maybe Oblak too, which is the only right move if there’s no other way. As for the performance, the band is very convincing. Tight, solid. They play excellently! The real ear magnet in the quartet is the work of Žiga Stanonik, who has a measure of exceptional finesse and subtlety in how he controls the strings. His consistently organic, clean sound, contrasted with »reverb«, delivered top-notch replicas of the original solos and honestly an absolute upgrade on them, which the most holy George Harrison would surely have applauded, were he still alive. The original solos are no joke, after all! Žiga is definitely HELP!’s number one attraction, especially when he takes on vocals while playing guitar for Here Comes the Sun and Something in Blackbird, nailing the vocal character of George Harrison with incredible success.
Running through the evening’s repertoire, we witnessed the following Beatles songs (a few have definitely slipped my memory): Please Please Me, Eight Days A Week, Slow Down, Please Mr. Postman, All My Loving, It Won’t Be Long, A Hard Day’s Night, Drive My Car, Day Tripper, I Want To Hold Your Hand, She Loves You, Obladi Oblada, Twist And Shout, I Need You, Help!, With A Little Help From My Friends, Come Together, Get Back, Here Comes The Sun, We Can Work It Out, Let It Be, Hey Jude, Yellow Submarine, Revolution, Norwegian Wood (The Bird Has Flown), Can’t Buy Me Love, Nowhere Man, Back in the USSR, Yesterday, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, then in the first encore a touching Something, with Harrison’s Blackbird as the surprise and treat of the night. Three covers of other artists that The Beatles played on stage during their career made the cut too: Rock ‘N’ Roll Music, Long Tall Sally and Roll Over Beethoven. With their instruments and the rest of the basic PA logistics, the band also delivered a sound that stays close to the originals. Special praise goes to the renowned, seasoned and experienced sound engineer, none other than Yoldi.
All of this begs a rhetorical question. We know that The Beatles Revival, yet another “tribute to Beatles” outfit, from the Czech Republic, has been visiting Slovenia’s capital Ljubljana with gigs at Cvetličarna for a few years now. They’re no better and no higher in quality at imitating The Beatles than “HELP! A Beatles Tribute”. So why don’t HELP! take the stages of the Slovenian capital every year instead? I’m sure they’re cheaper, and the travel costs are incomparably lower too!
There was simply no end in sight to the heartfelt fun and bright mood of this evening in Bistrica pri Tržiču. HELP! literally won the crowd over, and when it was finally over, people still didn’t want to leave the amphitheater. The show ran over two and a half hours in total, and the band surely played around 35 songs. A worthy, deliciously sinful approximation of the original. If we set aside the demands of the highest quality standards that any Beatles replica should meet in the eyes of his holiness »Dr ProgRock«, who missed a sitar, a Leslie amp and a Hammond organ on stage, and most likely songs like Tomorrow Never Knows, The Fool on the Hill or A Day in the Life too, HELP! A Beatles Tribute Band is a group tailor-made to nicely satisfy what most Beatles fans are after, and they do their job convincingly and with plenty of heart!
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