Abbey Road, a Beatles tribute band, will perform Thursday night at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater. Doors will open at 7 p.m., and the performers are set to go on at 7:30 p.m.
The show, titled “The Number Ones... and more,” will include songs from the Beatles album “1,” which includes every No. 1 single the band achieved. Abbey Road will also perform other hits from the Beatles’ discography that aren’t on that album in its performance Thursday.
Axel Clarke, the group’s Ringo Starr, said Abbey Road has been touring the country, and even internationally, with its Beatles tribute for about 15 years now. He is the only original member of the musical group that started in 2010. The current group, which consists of Nate Bott as John Lennon, Chris Paul Overall as Paul McCartney and Matt Fenicchia as George Harrison, have been touring together since 2013.
As one of the original members, Clarke has been a longtime Beatles fan. Although he didn’t imagine this group continuing this long, he said he enjoys playing great Beatles music.
“My dad was a Beatles fan so growing up it was always on in the house,” Clarke said. “Even by osmosis when I was a baby, I was learning the songs.”
The upcoming Bloomington show will be the debut of “The Number Ones... and more” performance and will include more than just songs. They will perform the hit songs in order and highlight different Beatles eras with costume changes, Clarke said.
Throughout their performance, they will be feature four different eras of the Beatles. In order to give themselves time for the costume change, they created narration videos to blend from one era to another.
“Just about every song’s got a specific either narrative animation or just visual goodness that we’re adding to it to complement a song and reflect the era,” Clarke said. “Whether it’s a black and white early ‘60s or a more psychedelic later ‘60s idea.”
The group has been preparing for this performance for the last couple of months. Although they haven’t done this one before, they are no strangers to theatrical performances often incorporating elements such as acting, costumes and videos into their shows.
One of the noteworthy shows was titled “In my life – a musical theater tribute to the Beatles,” which the band toured with until 2020. This performance was a scripted show that took the audience through the career of the Beatles through the eyes of their manager Brian Epstein. That show included a mix of monologues and musical performances to tell the story.
Another popular show of theirs is called “Beatles vs. Stones – a musical showdown.” This performance is a showdown between Abbey Road and Rolling Stones tribute band Satisfaction. Abbey Road co-producer Andy Nagle said that show is one of their more popular performances and tours about seven months a year.
“In 2023, Beatles vs. Stones played the Buskirk-Chumley Theater in Bloomington,” Nagle said in an email. “We were impressed with the staff at the theater and the audience who came to see the show made us all feel very welcome. It was a very pleasant experience; we decided that Bloomington would be perfect to launch our new show.”
With this being their debut show, they have a few more lined up after Thursday night in Schaumburg, Illinois, and then Louisville, Kentucky. Bott, the group’s John Lennon, said if the show goes well and the audiences enjoy it, they may continue touring with it.
Bott said it is sometimes surprising which songs are No. 1’s and which aren’t when you think about popular Beatles songs. With the wide variety though, he said the show casts a wider net.
“I think just like kind of from all angles, like from the band creatively and then from a marketing standpoint and from an audience standpoint, it sort of checks all the boxes for what a good time might be,” Bott said.
