First published in the Aug. 13 print issue of the Burbank Leader.
While 5-year-old JoJo Walker may have been born 48 years after The Beatles broke up, and, respectfully, 37 and 16 years after the deaths of John Lennon and George Harrison, those facts meant nothing to her as she made her way up the long and winging road to the Starlight Bowl for the 2022 Summer Concert Series this past Sunday.
Accompanied by her family, JoJo, who will begin kindergarten at Jefferson Elementary School later this month, was decked out in a bell-bottomed get-up reminiscent of those worn during the height of Beatlemania.
Soon after JoJo got settled on the grass at the bowl, The Beatles tribute band, The Fab Four, who had just met with Burbank Mayor Jess Talamantes in their dressing room, took to the stage. For the following two-plus hours, JoJo and Mayor Talamantes were joined by every member of the full-house crowd who sang along to the beloved songs they all knew by heart whether they were 8 or 88.
Widely renowned as the premiere tribute artists who recreate the sound and look of the original lads from Liverpool, the mock-mop tops, consisting of Joshua Jones as Paul McCartney, Gavin Pring as George Harrison, Ron McNeil as John Lennon, and Richard Lewis as Ringo Starr, have proven to be a constant Starlight Bowl favorite over the past decade.
“We always know we are going to have a big crowd who will thoroughly enjoy the show when we have The Fab Four,” said Erin Barrows, who oversees the Starlight Bowl’s facilities and programming.
While the city’s concert series will end with tonight’s show that features Abba tribute band, The Fabba Show, special engagement concerts will continue through early September with Thomas Andres and Modern Talking, three nights of mariachi music with Ramon Ayala and Mariachi Vargas De Tecalitlán, and a very special appearance by one of today’s greatest rock and blues vocalists, the Grammy-nominated Beth Hart.
For more information and to get tickets for these shows, visit starlightbowl.com.
DAVID LAURELL may be reached by email at dlaurell@aol.com or (818) 563-1007.
