This weekend, all you need is Abbey Road on the River
by Kevin Gibson

Last summer, the Smithereens were likely the first to publicly mention that Abbey Road on the River was coming to Louisville. On the day of their Fourth Street Live show, the New York-based rockers dined at Hard Rock Café with promoters David Dean and Eric Wiegel, who at that time asked the band to perform at the festival.

“They were telling us about the idea,” said Smithereens guitarist Jim Babjak, “and we said we had always wanted to do that. From my era, it’s everybody’s dream to want to play that stuff.”

So during the show that night, Smithereens frontman Pat DiNizio told the crowd the band would return to Louisville to play an all-Beatles set at a festival called Abbey Road on the River in May 2005. He then announced the band would like to play the Beatles’ “I’m a Loser” in salutation.

Few noticed, but Babjak looked at his bandmate, perplexed, and said, “Really?” But play it they did (even though it took Babjak a bar or two to find the chords). Thus began the countdown to Abbey Road on the River.

And so this weekend, May 27-29, some 40 bands from here and abroad, along with vendors and guest speakers, will descend upon the Belvedere at the Kentucky Center to celebrate the music of the Beatles, the band many call the most influential in rock ’n’ roll history. More than 5,000 weekend passes have already been sold, and promoter Gary Jacob won’t be surprised by a total body count of 20,000-25,000 for the three-day festival, as it’s inherently a walk-up event.

Jacob, who founded the festival, believes he has found a permanent home for Abbey Road on the River after three festivals in Cleveland that faced stiff competition for entertainment dollars. The playing field may be a bit more workable here, he said, as there’s no Major League baseball team, nor an abundance of major Memorial Day festivals to compete with.

“But what sealed it for me was the Belvedere and the Kentucky Center,” said Jacob, who’s been a promoter for 25 years. “It’s the finest festival park I’ve ever produced a festival at, and I’ve produced a festival on the White House lawn. Our out-of-town guests are going to love it. And Louisvillians who haven’t been there in a while are going to love it. It’s a treasure.”

And Jacob last year sold interest in Abbey Road on the River to local promoters Dean and Wiegel, giving the festival true Louisville roots.

“My wife and I went (to Cleveland) the last two years,” Dean said. “I kept saying, ‘This would be really great for Louisville.’”

Once they were in, Dean and Wiegel got the mayor’s office and the Greater Louisville Convention and Business Bureau involved, and the stage was set. Or, more accurately, six stages: Bands of all sorts will play Beatles music on six different stages all weekend, and visitors will find vendors aplenty selling art, music, books, clothing and more. In addition, George Harrison’s sister, Louise, will be a guest speaker on Saturday, and several other guest speakers will appear. There’s also a Beatles film festival on tap, with “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Imagine” being shown at the Bomhard Theater.

But the question that comes to mind is, “Why?” How is it that now, more than 40 years removed from “Beatlemania,” there’s an entire three-day festival in Louisville, Ky., which, it must be said, is more than a hop, skip and jump from Liverpool? How is it that thousands of people will flock to the waterfront to be part of this? How can the Beatles still be so popular?

“I always make this joke,” said Mark Benson, who plays John Lennon in the Beatles tribute band 1964: The Tribute, “and I’m really not sure if it is a joke. But it was almost like God was saying, ‘Maybe I should try music.’ When you think about it, there are less people on the planet who argue about the Beatles than about Christianity, and religion is the one thing that is supposed to bring us all together.”

The Smithereens’ Babjak was less philosophical on the question of why the Beatles endure in popular culture. “For me their music just really takes me back to a good time,” he said. “Radio was kind of boring before [the Beatles]. They really stirred things up, including the hair, the clothes and all that. The best thing is the music still sounds good.”

“They are the cultural phenomenon of our time,” Jacob said. “Before they were 25 years old, they had written and published over 200 songs, and most of them were hits. God gave them great gifts. They were also the most photographed people of their time, and that helped us fall in love with them.

“But in the end it was their ability to change and more or less lead whatever revolution was happening in the ’60s. They were at the epicenter of it.”

Benson, whose band plays Friday night at Whitney Hall (it’s sold out), also noted that, “Even if you don’t know all the trivia and what John had for lunch before he wrote ‘Hard Day’s Night,’ you still know the music.”

Kirk Kiefer, 21, works in information technology in Louisville, is in a band called Yardsale, and is a self-confessed Beatleaholic. Including solo material, he claims to have roughly 500 Beatles-related CDs, most of them bootlegs, ranging from the band’s complete 1962 audition for Decca Records to pretty much every second of recorded material from the Get Back sessions (which eventually became the album Let it Be).

Asked why he’s so obsessed with a band that had broken up long before he was born, he said, “I like Paul’s hair.”

Joking aside, he pointed out that, “It’s not just the fact they have these ironclad, fantastic songs, it’s also the fact they have these songs and they are perfectly arranged and produced — it’s just the whole package there. It’s the way Paul and John sang together; you can have two other people singing the same notes, and it still doesn’t sound that good. Then you factor in that they were in the right place at right time. I don’t know how to explain it — but many books try, I’m sure.”

Kiefer, however, is no fan of Beatles tribute bands. He’s never seen one and doesn’t really have any urge to (although he said he will attend Abbey Road on the River for the vendors and guest speakers). “It’s one thing to like them and be inspired by them, and obviously these people spent lot of time learning this stuff, but they’re still just copying it. There’s something about it that’s over-the-top, especially considering Paul McCartney is still out there. If you want to hear Beatles songs, go hear the real thing, you know?”

Jacob realizes there are Beatles purists who don’t care for tribute bands, but he maintains it’s all about the music — and about love, which is what the Beatles always stood for. Love, he believes, is all you need.

“What better family activity is there?” he said. “Kids under 12 are admitted free, and so many people raised their children on the Beatles. We bring back those happy days; everybody’s dancing, everybody’s happy. The Ed Sullivan years will come to life on the Belvedere.”

And 1964’s Benson maintains that what he likes best about his job is not just playing Beatles songs and keeping the music alive, but rather the response he sees from audiences. He noted that 1964: The Tribute played at the ceremony during which the Berlin Wall was officially dissolved. Benson didn’t initially understand why he was asked to be there, but said the East Berlin audience sang along with every song.

“This music is such a common denominator,” he said. “There isn’t any wall that goes up, because 90 percent of it is about love. I think on a very subliminal level, that’s why it’s lasted so long and people keep coming back to it. When you see grandparents who bought tickets for their granddaughters to come and see us, that’s such a great, great thing. Anything that is creative has some divine nature, but something this big — it’s definitely not an accident.”

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