Bootleg Beatles come to Derby
Friday, March 13, 2009, 07:30
By Nigel Powlson
WHEN a young carol singer was invited into a Merseyside house by Paul McCartney at the height of his fame, little did the boy know that 40 years later he would be a standard bearer for The Beatles music.
Neil Harrison has been recreating the music of the Fab Four for 30 years as part of the tribute act The Bootleg Beatles and, as he grew up in The Wirral in the 1960s, the music of his heroes has always been part of his life.
"I have always been a massive fan," he says. "The Beatles were the reason I became a musician. It was all happening across the water as I was growing up and it was amazing.
"It was 1968 when I went carol singing with a group of mates and ended up outside Paul's dad's house and discovered he was staying there. Paul came out on the porch, jammed with us and invited us in for a drink. We sat round singing songs from the White Album for 45 minutes. It was unbelievable as he was my complete idol and was still a Beatle at the time."
Even then Neil wanted to be a musician like his hero.
"I used to write songs in the 1970s that were quite Beatlish," he says.
So when a new stage show Beatlemania was announced Neil was determined to be a part of it.
"When the auditions came up I thought I had a good chance of getting in, especially as I looked quite like John Lennon." he says.
Neil got the part but never dreamed that three decades later he would have made it his career. But out of Beatlemania The Bootleg Beatles were born
"We all got on, knew all these songs, had grown our fringes, when we could still grow fringes, and thought we should put a little show of our own together to carry it on," he says. "We just thought it was a bit of a laugh. But work kept coming in and it became hard to give up. We got a tour of America and then to Russia in 1982 when it was still Communist and hardly any western bands were going there. We went to amazing places like Israel and Japan and we thought 'why not travel the world and carry on doing this?'."
Now, the Bootlegs are still playing 100 shows a year and have been together far longer than the originals.
"There are no creative arguments," laughs Neil. "We just do what's on the records. Everyone has mortgages to pay and we don't work 365 days a year so there's time to do other things."
The Bootleg Beatles success was a key factor in the rise of tribute bands that now dominate the musical circuit, so does Neil think his band are to blame?
"Inadvertently, I suppose we are," he says. "We were working a lot and getting gigs and there was an influx of Australian acts at the same time – Bjorn Again and the Australian Pink Floyd Show. Struggling musicians thought, 'hey, we can make a living out of this too'.
"But I don't think some of the bands will survive very long. The Beatles are the best band to choose as they are never going to go out of favour. Everybody loves them."
The Bootlegs' performance is also more of a theatrical show than four guys just playing the music.
"We go through six periods of The Beatles starting as mop tops," says Neil. "We have rock 'n' roll years video footage and an orchestra playing. It's quite a big show people are getting to see.
"You have this vast collection of great music and then you have their four personalities and they are all very famous in their own right You have the drama of The Beatles story to tell. People remember where they were when a particular Beatles song came out, so the songs trigger an emotional reaction. It also brings back a more colourful era.
"People now live in their ipod bubble. It's all a bit grey and now there's the recession. It was all more hopeful back then. So you come to our show and lose yourself in the 60s for two hours."
The Bootlegs have won over many Beatles fans and have even had George Harrison's seal of approval after meeting him after one of their live performances.
"He was great," says Neil. "He said, 'You probably know the chords better than I do because I only played the songs once'. He also said, 'Which one is the Brian Epstein Bootleg? Because he has got all the money'."
THE BOOTLEG BEATLES WHERE: Derby Assembly Rooms. WHEN: Sunday (8pm). TICKETS: £22.50. BOX OFFICE: 01332 255800.
