SHILLONG: NEW YORK,DEC. 8, 1980 : The world held its collective, bated breath in horror as sounds of gun-shots aimed at music icon and former Beatle John Lennon reverberated world-wide. The irony could not have been more pronounced: a family man who had , of late, withdrawn himself into a cocoon, becoming another victim of mindless violence. A peace activist whose mantra was “All we need is love” and “Give Peace a Chance” bludgeoned into silence by a fan who, like thousands of others, must have basked in the glorious sunlight that the Beatles music had come to mean, relieving them of the drudgery, the pain and the angst of every day life.
31 years and a day later, a leading, Kent-based Beatles tribute band , the Counterfeit Beatles , are set to turn the magical clock back and afford Shillongites with a glimpse of the era that heralded the zenith of musical spendour. Complete with the signature Beatles costumes and regalia, Counterfeit Beatles is a leading tribute band dedicated to the Fab Four and have played before packed audiences worldwide, warming up shows for giants like Coldplay, Elvis Costello and Steve Winwood.
That the music created by Lennon and Mccartney has shaped Shillong’s myriad musicians is beyond doubt. Right from the heydays of 60s Rock and Roll that saw pumped up youths screaming to the sounds of I Saw Her Standing There, Twist and Shout and Help to the psychedelic miasma of I am the Walrus, Strawberry Fields and I’m Only Sleeping, the Beatles music captured the zeitgeist of a generation that gyrated , swayed and rocked to the magical sound of albums as diverse as Rubber Soul, the White Album, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart Club band and Abbey Road. Their legacy has spawned many a starry-eyed teenager’s dream to make it big some day, leading to the proliferation of local bands that saw in the meteoric rise of the four boys from Liverpool a reflection of the growing aspirations of many a Shillong musician. And what majestic possibilities, what magical sparks those dreams helped lit! Were not the Fentones and Blood and Thunder, Eddie Rynjah and Toto Wahlang, the Rumnong Brothers and the King Apple a slice of that dream?
As Shillong prepares to roll up for its magical tryst with their much-adored heroes, albeit vicariously through Counterfeit Beatles, one hopes the season of love and optimism that characterized much of the Beatles music finds enough resonance in the hearts of all Shillongites to see them through the cold,wintry days ahead!