They love them, yeah, yeah, yeah
On World Beatles Day, John Meagher meets two Irish Fab Four fanatics
When Fran King and Damian Smyth get talking about The Beatles, it is practically impossible to get a word in edgeways.
Here are two men whose fascination with Paul McCartney's current Hofman bass guitar, for instance, borders on the irrational, or whose obsession with the finer points of last year's re-mastered catalogue makes you wonder just how many times they had the albums on constant rotation.
Such is their intimate knowledge of the Fab Four that one could imagine them racking up scores -- and no passes -- on the next season of Mastermind.
"I realise I might come across as the ultimate dinner-party bore," Smyth says, "and that's why I only talk about The Beatles around people who love them. There's nothing more irritating than someone forcing their interests on someone else. I'm careful around my family too -- there's only so much Beatles trivia they want to know."
Today, he will feel that bit more comfortable talking about his passion, with official Beatles Day events taking place in the band's native Liverpool as well as Hamburg, New York, Shanghai, Sydney and Moscow. And, at the beginning of next month, he and fans like him will commemorate the 50th anniversary of when the Merseyside band dropped the Silver Beatles moniker and settled on The Beatles instead.
Smyth is the author of The Beatles and Ireland (Collins Press), a trainspotter-ish labour of love that documents every conceivable Irish connection to "the greatest band of all time -- no question" from their famed concerts at Dublin's Adelphi, long since demolished, to an Easter break in the opulent surrounds of Dromoland Castle.
Yorkshire born but long a resident of Dublin, he was nine years old when the band split in 1970.
He was too young to realise it at the time, but the group would change his life. That love was nurtured on hearing the so-called Red and Blue compilation albums which were released three years later.
"I grew up loving The Beatles when it wasn't cool to say you liked them," he says. "It definitely wasn't okay to be a fan during the punk years, when they were seen as dull and old-fashioned.
"The stars truly were in alignment. You've got two of the greatest songwriters who ever lived getting together. Factor in a manager of Brian Epstein's abilities and a producer as adventurous as George Martin and you've got something very special indeed.
"Think of the astonishing music they produced in that eight-year period from 1962 to 1970. Today, bands take years out between albums; but they were incredibly prolific and the quality control was so high."
Spend even 10 minutes in his company, and it's likely that the most avowed Beatles hater will give the band a re-appraisal.
"I just can't understand why anyone could not like The Beatles," says King, who was born in 1969 while 'Hey Jude' was still in the charts. "I met someone recently who just dismissed them and it completely coloured my view of him. I mean, what sort of person doesn't get The Beatles?"
King certainly gets The Beatles. He plays the McCartney role in the acclaimed Dublin tribute band, The Classic Beatles. "We're 20 years old this year," he says proudly. King has been Macca for exactly half his life. "There's not much about him that I don't know," he says, matter-of-factly. "He's been good to me."
A glance at The Classic Beatles' website suggests there is a lucrative market to be mined.
King and the other three "Beatles" have played gigs for such deep-pocketed corporate giants as Coca Cola and Microsoft, as well as the weddings of such figures as Ryan Tubridy -- who has described the band as his second favourite ever, after the actual Beatles -- and property developer Sean Dunne. Among those who have seen them perform are George Martin and Queen Elizabeth.
Just a month ago, The Classic Beatles played to 17,000 people in Lithuania.
"We met a man afterwards and there were tears streaming down his face. He found it an incredibly emotional experience -- during the Soviet era, The Beatles were one of the bands who were banned there, so to see a band that can replicate their music meant a lot to him."
Smyth got to know King in the early 1990s, when his tribute band -- then called The Quarrymen, after the name McCartney and John Lennon initially called their group -- were packing in punters at Madigan's in Rathmines.
"They had the sort of energy that The Beatles would have had in the Cavern Club or in Hamburg. They were so tight, they really nailed that sound. You'd look around the crowd and you could see that there were an awful lot of people out there who were Beatles-obsessed."
Like many aficionados, Smyth and King are not just content with hearing every song The Beatles recorded -- 214 reportedly -- but they also want to hear every outtake, bootleg and snippet of studio banter they can find.
King jokingly describes his collection of Beatles books as "ridiculous" while Smyth's painstaking research for his own book unearthed all kinds of "useless information", but just the sort of detail to result in a sell out.
For King, there have been moments where his love affair with the Messrs McCartney, Lennon, Harrison and Starr was sorely tested, especially when he attempted to follow his own song-writing dreams. "Being in a Beatles tribute band can be a millstone," he says. "You can feel enslaved by it a bit and there have been times where you feel like your own creativity is being stifled. But, more recently, I believe the grounding in The Beatles has made me a better songwriter."
His second album, My Sweet Elixir, will be released here later this month but has already attracted positive reviews in the US where it came out in December.
It's Beatlesque in scope, but King has managed to add something fresh to his songs, rather than slavishly trying to emulate his heroes.
And the busy sing is set to play a week of Classic Beatles shows in the Olympia Dublin, from August 4.
Chatty as this King and Smyth are, it's easy to silence them -- just ask them to name their favourite Beatles song. "'Magical Mystery Tour'," Smyth says, after much deliberation. "An extraordinary song, so much happening in it. Or 'Golden Slumbers'. Or ... "
"Right now, it's 'Got to Get You Into My Life'," King says, "but ask me again tomorrow and it'll probably be something different. It's been 40 years since they split, but their music sounds as incredible as ever. Long after we're all gone, a new generation will hear one of their songs and be hooked."
Irish Independent
