In the mid-1970s, Mark Lewis, then a young keyboard player, struck a deal with a club owner in the San Fernando Valley of California. “We told him our band would play for the door and he could sell drinks on a Monday or Tuesday night when the place is normally empty,” Lewis recalled. “We played a lot of Beatles music back then and so we promoted a Beatles Night.”
The concept spread like wildfire that still burns more than 30 years later in the form of the group, Rain — A Tribute to the Beatles, which will be the star attraction this Friday and Saturday night at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts.
| Onstage |
| Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles |
| Where: Filene Center, Wolf Trap, 1645 Trap Road, Vienna |
| WHEN: Friday, June 17 and Saturday, June 18 at 8:00 p.m. |
| Info: $40 in house, $25 lawn, 877-WOLFTRAP, wolftrap.org |
Playing together longer than the Beatles themselves, Rain, with Lewis as creator, producer and manager, has mastered every song, gesture and nuance that would become the legendary music and the iconic personas of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
That Rain is a group totally composed of Beatles impersonators and doing only the music of the Fab Four, does not bother Lewis in the least.
“We started our group five years after the Beatles broke up [and] I remember there was such a passion out there for their music,” Lewis explained. “I thought we could do this as a career forever because people will come out to see us doing the songs exactly like the Beatles did.”
Indeed, people did come out — in droves. Rain was booked for a three-month run on Broadway at the Neil Simon Theatre. Crowds were so enthusiastic that, according to Lewis, “the decision was to move us to a new theater, the Brooks Atkinson [where] we have been for about a year and a half now.”
Eight shows a week, however, was a killer for the band and so new members (a total of 12 now) were trained and honed in their roles as individual Beatles. This allowed them to maintain the quality of performance and while some tour, Lewis said, others stay on Broadway. The original members of Rain will be featured at Wolf Trap.
“We like to call the show, ‘Beatles A to Z, from Ed Sullivan to Abbey Road,’ and that makes it chronological,” Lewis continued. “It is a retrospective of all the different eras with costumes, from Ed Sullivan days to Shea Stadium to the White Album, Abbey Road and Let it Be.”
As for the show’s wild success, Mark Lewis figures, “The Beatles are multigenerational. Parents bring their kids; grandparents bring their grandkids, to show them why the Beatles were so popular. And the kids get it.”
