You’re taken in by the beautifully restored 1930 George Washington Ballroom at the War Memorial in Trenton, NJ. The only light are hundreds of candles illuminating the stage, along the floor lining the walls and single candles at the beginning of every aisle. Our tickets were a birthday gift from friends. It was a one hour concert of Beatles’s music played by a string quartet. The crowd was Baby Boomers who grew up in the Sixties when the Beatles created maybe the greatest collection of popular music in the 20th century. The four musicians, two women and two men, playing two violins, a viola, and a bass sat down and brought the Beatles music to life as you never heard it before.
It started with “I Want to Hold Your Hand”. At first, you’re struck by how different it sounds, but after a few seconds you’re transported back to when you first heard it and the hundreds of times you’ve heard it since. They went on to play a couple of songs from each year from 1964 to 1970. “Help”, “Eleanor Rigby”, “In My Life”, “Penny Lane”, “Strawberry Fields”, “ My Guitar Gently Weeps” to a name a few. The sound was much more stirring than you would think just four strings would make. The music, the candles and the grand old theater transported you back to our younger days with a whole new version of the music that was the sound track of a generation and is still vibrant all these decades later.
It started on July 6, 1957 when teenagers John Lennon and Paul McCartney were introduced by a mutual friend at the St. Peter’s Church Hall fete in Woolton, Liverpool. Paul played a song for John and was invited to join his group the Quarrymen. They started writing songs in Paul’s bedroom. Seven years later they burst into our lives on the Ed Sullivan Show. All these decades later we are enthralled by a new version and a new appreciation for some of greatest music of our time.
For one hour we were taken away from our troubled world to a world of candlelight and music and memories of the music we loved. Towards the end of the concert the leader of the quartet challenged the audience to name a list of songs the group would string together in small bites. The audience knew them all. When they were done, we gave them a standing ovation tempting them for an encore. We were left with “Let It Be” one the last songs Paul wrote. It was a fitting end to the evening. Paul had written it after dreaming about his mother who died when he was just fourteen. He had trouble remembering her face. In the dream, her face was clear again. It was a difficult time in Paul’s life. The group was starting to drift apart. He said the dream was a message from his mother to be gentle and don’t fight things and things will work out. “When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me. Speaking words of wisdom, let it be. There will be an answer, let it be”. An uplifting note on a magical evening.
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