Last month at the Crowne Plaza Meadowlands Hotel (just outside New York City) was our 36th N.Y. Metro area convention – and it was another successful and high spirited FEST. A record number of Special Guests appeared, all with great Beatles stories to share. We were streaming live and over 1,000 of you watched the events on the main stage (listenonline.net)
Our musical guests included two members of Wings – Denny Laine and Denny Seiwell; British Invasion stars Spencer Davis and Billy J. Kramer; American star Chris Montez; and two of the three Hudson Brothers – Mark Hudson & Brett Hudson. (Brett gave us a pre-release exclusive look at his new film, The Chris Montez Story). All our guests shared great Beatles anecdotes during the day – and rocked by night – backed by our longtime Beatles band Liverpool, who amazed the jammed packed ballroom and featured their performance of the entire Let It Be Album. As well as performing individual sets, Mark Hudson assembled all the musical guests on stage for hard-rocking finale jams on both Saturday & Sunday night. Liberty DeVito, a surprise musical guest, came on for Billy J. Kramer’s set and stayed for the jam. Liberty is one of the top Rock Drummers in the world, having been Billy Joel’s drummer for decades!
Other Special Guests included the legendary Andrew Loog Oldham who related stories about his time as the Beatles’ publicist in 1963 and how as manager/producer for the Rolling Stones he hooked up the two bands. Chris O’Dell talked about her similar career trajectory of working first for the Beatles (at Apple) and then for The Stones. We also heard from legendary promoter Sid Bernstein, photographer Allan Tannenbaum, authors Andy Babiuk, Bruce Spizer, Kristofer Engelhardt, Jon Polk, Jude Southerland Kessler, Judith Kristen and many others. Among the many highlights was Sunday’s Musicians’ Forum in which emcee Martin Lewis and guest Andrew Oldham engaged our seven musician guests in discussion about the myriad musical styles that influenced the Fabs – illustrated by impromptu jams on songs that inspired John, Paul, George & Ringo. Attendees also enjoyed many other sessions hosted by Martin and co-MC Q104.3 deejay Ken Dashow.
More young fans attended this year than ever before and there were plenty of activities to excite them – The Beatles Rock Band Demo, daily Beatles Puppet Shows with Bob Abdou, Sing-Alongs with Karaoke Karen, Beatles Recording Studio, Art Contest, and special Trivia Competitions. And of course, there were plenty of singalongs around the hotel.
Fifteen bands competed in the Battle of the Beatles bands – with the winners being a young band from Bergen County aged 13-15 called The Yoo Hoos. They won with a great version of I Want You (She’s So Heavy) For their encore they saluted our musical guest Denny Laine with Go Now.
On Saturday night, Fest attendees were treated to a US exclusive – presenting a reel of scenes from the upcoming feature film about John Lennon’s teenage years “Nowhere Boy”. Martin, who made this preview possible, also gave exclusive details about the film’s US release. It is going to be launched on Friday October 8 celebrating the 70th anniversary of John’s birth. A new website has been set up specially for fans of John and the Beatles which will provide exclusive, information about the movie and also tells fans how they can help in spreading the word about the film. www.NowhereBoy.com
Hundreds of exciting FEST Photos may now be found on Facebook. Have a look!
Next FEST is CHICAGO – August 13-15, 2010 at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare.
