Honey, would you call the color of the sky right now “Marmalade”?

Last Saturday night, The Wife and I attended another concert by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. This one, however, did not feature classical music; we actually attended a Pops concert. It was called “Classical Mystery Tour”, and it featured the BPO doing songs of the Beatles. I expected orchestral arrangements of Beatles songs, maybe a few singers along the way, and generally a “Beatles turned into classical music” kind of thing.

That’s not what happened, though. It turns out that “Classical Mystery Tour” is the name of a Beatles tribute band that tours around performing with symphony orchestras around the world. This I figured out when we entered the hall to take our seats and saw, at the front of the stage and in front of the orchestra, a rock-band type set-up. “Ooooh, there’s a band!”, I said. And after the BPO warmed things up with a concert overture that was pretty much exactly what I expected the concert to be — Beatles melodies arranged for orchestra — the band came out.

And you know what? They were pretty good. Very good, in fact.

It probably helped us that we were far enough up in the balcony that we could see that the four guys in the band had the general “look” down (four guys in dark suits and mop haircuts), but not their specific facial features that would make it obvious that hey, that dude on the left doesn’t look anything like Paul McCartney at all.

The group’s sound was excellent, for the most part. I liked that they sounded very similar to the Beatles, but they didn’t strive for sounding identical to the Beatles. They did a basic rundown of a lot of the Beatles’ greatest hits, and they used the Philharmonic to great effect, achieving sonic effects from the stage that the Beatles themselves only achieved in the studio.

It was a grand evening, even if I have to cry foul that “Live and Let Die” is not a Beatles song!

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