My impression was the Todd R. was not in any way the focus of the show, just one of the ensemble. He looked like he was enjoying himself, but it was pretty obvious he's not very serious about his own song "Hello, It's Me", so why do it? Aside from a lot of his jumping around, Todd's playing and singing was mostly in the background. He has spent much of his career as a Beatles wannabe in my opinion, and believe me, his singing showed last night that he's no John Lennon. His only noticeable lead guitar playing was on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and it was pretty good on that one.
The only spontaneous standing ovation of the night was for The Who's "The Real Me", on which Godfrey Townsend did an excellent Roger Daltrey impression and John Entwistle showed again why he's the best bass player in rock.
David Pack is a very good singer and guitarist. The former Ambrosia singer did a couple of his own M.O.R. hits from the 70s which were the wimpiest tunes of the night and for which John Entwistle had the good sense to leave the stage. However, Pack showed he could really rock on many other numbers.
Ann Wilson does indeed still have a great voice although it was sometimes hard to hear over so many electric guitars. At times, there were 6 guitars playing at once (also 4, 5 and 6 voices at a time sometimes which made the production more like a Broadway version of Godspell than an actual Beatles' performance).
All of the artists' own songs in the first set were very well done.
As for the second set, which was all Beatles' tunes, I had mixed feelings about it. Most were very well played, but they mostly caused me to remember why the Beatles were so great in the first place. The songs themselves are so good. There is no one in this current all star band whose singing could possibly make you forget John or Paul, and no voices that blend together as beautifully as John and Paul's always did. That said, the all-stars played well and were enthusiastic and seemed to be having fun despite the small audience in Hamilton.
They skipped a few tunes that they'd done at other shows (like "Get Back" and "Come Together") that would have been nice to hear, but a few oldies like "I'm Down" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand" got people moving.
All in all an enjoyable evening, but a caution to anyone expecting this bunch to re-create anything approximating the sound of the Beatles.
The sound of this group, with a few exceptions, is not at all like the Beatles sound. The drum kit was 3 times the size of anything Ringo ever played, there were often twice as many guitars on a song as the Beatles ever used, and there were far more songs where a group of 4 or 5, including a woman (Ann Wilson) were singing at once.
So I'd recommend people see the show, but go expecting to hear a lot of pleasant, familiar tunes played professionally, but with nothing approaching the sound or in most cases, or the feeling of the great original Beatles' versions.
