RAIN
Feb. 9, 1964. A Sunday night that would change the course of popular
music, popular culture - and history. Among the 75 million Americans
tuned in to The Ed Sullivan Show on their families' televisions that
night were five boys who lived in different parts of the country but
were equally smitten a seemingly their entire generation was - by the
appearance of four mop-topped young Englishmen in dark suits calling
themselves the Beatles, cranking out a soaped-up brand of melodic, guitar-and-harmonies-driven
rock 'n' roll that was as infectious as it was original and unique:
A rollicking number with a catchy chorus: "All My Loving".
A covered ballad, "Till There Was You". A supercharged rocker,
"She Loves You", punctuated by the contagious phrase, "Yeah,
yeah, yeah!" And after returning later in the show, two more fast-paced
songs: "I Saw Her Standing There" and "I Want to Hold
Your Hand".
Neither the quartet from Liverpool, their screaming fans in the studio
guessed in their giddiest dreams the ultimate impact the band would
have. But the Beatles would grow into a multimedia phenomenon too popular
to tour, continually evolve their music and lyrics, pioneer studio recordings
into an art form, raise the rock genre into a potent forum for social
and political expression - and inspire and influence generations of
musicians to follow. In the immediate aftermath of that first Ed Sullivan
appearance, legions of would-be rockers picked up guitars (turned on
by the music - or at least the prospects of impressing girls) and started
off on their own quests.
It would be nearly 20 years after that fateful night that five very
talented young Americans initially fired up by the Fab Four would, themselves,
come together in a Beatles tribute band that would, in its own right,
raise the bar of tribute acts from hackdom to grand masterly craft -
forging a career that would stretch to twice as long as the Beatles
and preserving the legacy of the immortal band's recorded music on stage
to wildly enthusiastic audiences spanning the generations, including
the vast majority of older fans who never got to see the Beatles perform
live, and fans who weren't born yet when the Beatles hit America.
These five members of Rain shared a vision that had been lacking in
the act by previous members who'd shuffled in and out of the lineup.
The quintet - four portraying John, Paul, George and Ringo, and the
fifth sitting offstage to contribute keyboards and various sounds of
the Beatles' background instrumentation - approached the Beatles music
as classical musicians. They continually strove to replicate the music
perfectly - even the intricate studio material recorded from 1967 on
that the Beatles never performed on stage. In so doing, Rain continually
polished its stage show, worked a rigorous tour schedule that saw them
playing ever-larger venues and built a huge fan base, garnering media
attention on both sides of the Atlantic.
To this day, Rain revisits and analyzes the Beatles' recordings to
uncover the subtleties and gems the lads from Liverpool delivered as
they enraptured the world and ignited a music revolution.
The story of Rain really begins in the mid-1970s. Fresh out of college,
keyboardist Mark Lewis hunted around his native Los Angeles area for
work. He met two musicians in an Orange County bar band called Reign
who worked plenty of Beatles covers into their gigs. In time, Reign
was in demand to play Beatle sets, riding a towering wave of nostalgia
for the band that had broken up in 1970. After numerous misspellings
in the media and advertising, Reign became Rain (title of a 1966 Beatles
single). A big break came when the band was hired by Dick Clark to record
the music for the 1979 made-for-TV movie "Birth of the Beatles".
Still, the members of Rain dreamed of recording their own material
and inking a big-label contract. They came close, but didn't get a deal.
Numerous personnel changes followed as Lewis strove to keep the band's
calendar filled with Beatles-tribute dates. In his vision, Rain could
rise to great heights by doing Beatles like no one before, save the
originals. Rain would lift the tribute act to an art form. Lewis' perseverance
eventually paid off, as four ultra-gifted veterans of the Beatlemania
productions that had plied the boards on Broadway, in Los Angeles and
on national tours joined up in what would become a permanent Rain lineup.
These four were brilliant musicians and capable singers who also possessed
stage savvy, complete with costumes and makeup. They were New Yorkers
Joey Curatolo (portraying Paul McCartney) and Joe Bithorn and Los Angeleno
Ralph Castelli (portraying Ringo Starr).
Rain steadily progressed from there - playing the "three C's"
of the entertainment business: cabarets, cruise ships and conventions.
Their fan base gradually widened, their act grew ever tighter and their
mastery of the Beatles constantly advanced toward an unheard-of perfection.
Only the tragic death in 1997 of Riddle, to a brain tumor, altered the
lineup. Riddle's Beatlemania roommate and close friend Steve Landes
joined up, and Rain's roster remains the same today. The band is in
demand in more than 200 dates a year.
The greatest change has been the band's creation, in 2001, of a showroom
act complete with multimedia video that conjures up the history and
feeling of the turbulent 1960s. Rain has grown that act into a major
Broadway-type theater production that has been playing to sellouts in
large venues throughout the United States and Canada. The band progresses
through four costume and set changes commensurate with the four Beatles
phases they portray: early (Ed Sullivan-show era), psychedelic ("Sergeant
Pepper"), flower-power ("Magical Mystery Tour" period)
and latter ("White Album" / "Abbey Road" / "Let
it Be" years). The band occasionally mixes in an unplugged acoustic
jam session - Joey, Joe and Steve sitting stage-front with guitars.
And they show no signs of hanging up their mop-top wigs any time soon.
Rain has its sights set on playing ever-larger theaters and concert
halls and to continuing to preserve the magical legacy of the Beatles
to crowds old and young.
As the foremost practitioners of Beatles music, Rain has even cut its
own CD: "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" The band's unique proficiency
has caught the eyes of promoters around the nation.
In 1990, a Seattle Beatle-exposition promoter hired Rain to recreate
the Beatles' legendary 1969 rooftop concert in which the Fab Four had
played a surprise lunch-hour set of new material (which would end up
on its "Let It Be" album) on top of the five-story London
building that housed the "Abbey Road" recording studios. Rain
obliged, playing the10-song set note for note, word for word on a downtown
Seattle rooftop, then concluding with the post-Beatles Lennon single
"Imagine" as an encore. CNN Headline News aired reports on
the show for the next 24 hours.
Then, on Feb. 7, 2004 - 40 years to the exact minute (1:20 p.m. PST)
when the Beatles arrived on American soil at New York's John F. Kennedy
Airport - the members of Rain walked off a Concorde jet at Seattle's
Boeing Field to 7,000 screaming fans braving a cold rain, then performed
all the songs from the Beatles' three 1964 Ed Sullivan Show appearances.
Seattle oldies-rock station KBSG-FM organized the promotion. One disc
jockey explained: "We were thrilled when Rain agreed to portray
the Beatles. They not only perform the Beatles' music flawlessly, but
they also look like them, act like them, and talk like them!" He
added: "It is an historic portrayal and one we will always remember."
*Written by Michael Sion.*