Last weekend we were able to see a new concert from "The White Album Ensemble." This is the group that we saw last fall, the group that played The Beatles White Album from start to finish. This concert was another treasure.
This is not something that you'd want to buy a CD of. This is all about people playing music. This is about amazing musicians playing a concert of beloved music just for us. If you want to hear Rubber Soul and Revolver, just go get the real Beatles on CD. But if you want to sit in a crowd of people who love Beatles music, all ages from eight to eighty, then I hope you get to see one of these concerts.
I have listened to the Beatles my whole life; they have always been in the background. I never just sit and listen to the Beatles anymore, not since junior high.
Rubber Soul and Revolver are not everything that the White Album is, but there are so many songs that are amazing when you just sit and listen to them played live. This group did "Got to Get You Into My Life" like I had never heard it--and I never really liked it before. And "Tomorrow Never Knows" --of course they had guest musicians on sitar.
I talked about the concert with a friend from work who was there too. He said that he had been able to see the Beatles live twice. Once at the Cow Palace, and once at Candlestick--their last concert. I had never met anyone who said they had been to a Beatles concert before. He said that at the Cow Palace the Shriners were the ushers and he was able to get past them and just twenty feet away from the stage. The Beatles saved his life, he said. They got him into music, and he wouldn't have turned out so well if he hadn't been able to find himself in his music.
He asked me if I had seen "Concert for George." I hadn't. He said it was great, he told me about some of it, and then said that he was crying at the end. I nodded. "Did you cry while you were watching "Anthology?" "Yeah." "Yeah, me too. Good thing I watched it by myself." Then we had to stop talking about it, because of the emotion.
The music. The music they made. How lucky we are to have it recorded for us. And what a greater blessing to be able to hear it live, not by a look-alike band, just played by people who love the music as much as we do.
| ... Comments made afterwards |