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Review: 50 Years Ago Today – The Beatles White Album Tour with Micky Dolenz, Todd Rundgren, Christopher Cross, Joey Molland, Jason Scheff
October 21, 2019 by fred.velez
Filed under Fred Velez, news feed
The ’50 Years Ago Today-A Tribute to The Beatles White Album’ concert held at the Wind Creek Event Center (formerly The Sands) in Bethlehem, PA on October 19th, 2019, with an all-star cast featuring Todd Rundgren of The Nazz and Utopia, Micky Dolenz of The Monkees, Christopher Cross, Joey Molland of Badfinger and Jason Scheff of Chicago who all performed a spectacular show that was a proper celebration of The Beatles classic 1968 album.
The stars and their amazing backup band did a mix from the White Album and their own individual hits, launching straight away with ‘Back In The U.S.S.R.’ and going full throttle from there. The arrangements stuck close to The Beatles originals with Rundgren leading the band. Humor was incorporated throughout the show. While singing ‘Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except For Me and My Monkey’, Todd pointed at Micky Dolenz who looked on bemusedly.
Photo by Fred Velez
The musicianship was sterling throughout the two-and-a-half-hour show. Christopher Cross was in excellent voice and played fine guitar while singing his hits ‘Sailing’ and ‘Ride Like The Wind’. His voice sweetly suited the White Album songs ‘Blackbird’, ‘Mother Nature’s Son’, and with Jason Scheff joining in for a lovely rendition of ‘Julia’. Scheff who replaced Peter Cetera in Chicago performed that band’s hits ‘Hard To Say I’m Sorry’ and ’25 or 6 to 4’ with Monkees tour guitarist Wayne Avers faithfully recreating the songs’ blistering guitar solo.
Joey Molland, the last surviving member of Badfinger, which was the first band signed to the Beatles’ Apple Records, performed two of the group’s hits ‘No Matter What’ and ‘Baby Blue’. Micky Dolenz performed the Monkees hits ‘I’m A Believer’ and ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday’ and was in great voice throughout the show. Todd Rundgren for his solo turn performed ‘I Saw The Light’ and gave a rare live performance of his most well-known song ‘Hello It’s Me’.
Each performer gave his own take to the White Album songs. Micky sang ‘Rocky Raccoon’ with the twang of a Western storyteller and did a perfectly growling version of ‘Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?’. Christopher Cross crooned appropriately with ‘Honey Pie’, Jason Scheff sang a nice, crunchy version of ‘Glass Onion’, and Joey Molland did a bluesy ‘Revolution 1’. Todd Rundgren was a hoot during the show, donning appropriate costumes for numbers like ‘Sexy Sadie’ while dressed in white and tossing flowers into the audience, shooting the audience with water from a super soaker while wearing kakis and a pith helmet during ‘The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill’, and going totally manic as the whole band raged through ‘Helter Skelter’, it’s a wonder he still had a voice afterwards! And Micky matched Todd with ‘Birthday’.
For the encore the band led the standing ovation crowd in a singalong of ‘Obladi, Oblada’. They took their bows and left the stage waving as the White Album song ‘Good Night’ with Ringo Starr singing sweetly played on the sound system as the audience exited.
It was a wonderful evening of music, commemorating one of the Beatles best and most eclectic albums. The White Album Tour will be running until December. Do yourself a favor and catch one of the shows, it’s one of the best you’ll see in 2019.
Satisfaction Guaranteed!
Fred Velez, 2019.
(Fred Velez is the author of the book ‘A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You: The Monkees From A Fan’s Perspective)
