Abbey Road festival draws Beatles fans
by Martha Elson
The Courier-Journal

They still love you — yeah, yeah, yeah — John, Paul, George and Ringo.

Liz Dugan, 18, especially loves the Beatles, and was proving it Saturday by getting autographs of Beatles tribute band members and others on a special quilt she made to take to the Abbey Road on the River festival.

The three-day event at the Kentucky Center and the Belvedere Festival Park on West Main Street is intended to be nirvana for Beatles fans of every age, including those like Dugan who were born long after the group broke up more than 35 years ago.

“My parents listened to Beatles’ music ever since I can remember,” Dugan said. “I basically knew all the words to all the songs by the age of 9.”

The festival continues from noon to midnight Sunday with performances by the Yellow SubMorons, Sir Paul Ultimate Tribute and others. For the complete schedule, go to www.abbeyroadontheriver.com.

Dugan, a recent Assumption High School graduate, planned to hang the quilt in a room that she recently painted with the colors from the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album — lime green, hot pink, orange and blue — at her home in St. Regis Park.

Mike O’Neal was there with his sons, Drew, 11, and Matt, 15. Drew had just bought a Beatles poster, and O’Neal said he didn’t have to work at turning the boys into Beatles’ fans. “It’s kind of a natural thing,” he said.

British frock coats like the Beatles wore were on sale for $150 at a table set up by BeatWear of Liverpool.

Donna Culbertson from a Chicago suburb was buying black, pointed boots for her twin sons, Michael and Paul, 13, who play guitar. “We’ve been looking for Beatles boots for a long time,” she said.

Tom Hawkinson and Dan Maurice, who impersonate John and Paul in the tribute band Eight Days a Week, were wearing Beatles boots and suits.

Hawkinson said he saw the Beatles perform at the Minneapolis airport. “I loved them then and now,” he said.

The Abbey Road on the River festival, whose main sponsor is Fifth Third Bank, was started in Cleveland in 2002 by music promoter Gary Jacob and moved to Louisville last year.

David Dean, a Louisville promoter, said he bought two thirds of the festival enterprise after attending the Cleveland festival. Dean said he became a Beatles’ fan the moment they appeared on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964.

When their first album, “Meet the Beatles,” came out that year, John Lennon was 23, George Harrison, 20, Ringo Starr, 23, and Paul McCartney, 21. They were billed on the album as “England’s Phenomenal Pop Combo.”

Jeff Matheny, who was wearing a Sgt. Pepper’s T-shirt, clapped Saturday to a reggae version of “Get Back” by an African-American group called Mr. Wonderful, playing in an area of the Belvedere dubbed Desmond and Molly’s Patio.

“I just think their music’s second to none,” Matheny said.

Mayor Jerry Abramson was there with his son, Sidney, 14, and Sidney’s friend, Logan Buren, 14. Abramson said he was as much a Beatles’ fan as everyone else from that era.

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