Liquid Rooms, Edinburgh
four stars
The irresistible rise
of tribute bands over the last few years has made the return of the
best Beatles pastiche this side of Oasis inevitable. Originally sired
by former Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band stalwart and some-time Monty Python
collaborator Neil Innes for sketches on Eric Idle's Rutland Weekend
Television show in 1975, The Rutles hit the mainstream via the
wickedly observed mock documentary, All You Need is Cash, in 1978.
Judging by the authenticity of what are essentially a series of
three-minute mash-ups of the Lennon and McCartney songbook, most of
the nation's future Brit-pop generation must have watched the film's
original screening, because a Brit-pop template is what The Rutles
now sound like.
With Innes, aka Nasty,
and fellow original Rutle, John Halsey, aka Barry, in tow with a new
line-up, Innes kicks things off by singing Happy Birthday to an
audience member before launching into Hamburg era soundalike, Goose
Step Mama. Innes pulls an oversize Peace medallion from his shirt and
dons a pair of psychedelic shades for the trippier numbers, before
rewinding back to the mop-top era captured in I Must Be in Love.
As amusing as Innes
makes all this, there's something very clever going on in the
arrangements of the now five-piece Rutles that goes beyond parody in
the Penny Lane-alike Doubleback Alley and the I Am The Walrus-isms of
Piggy in the Middle. Just to make things really meta, they play a
faithful-sounding cover of George Harrison's All Things Must Pass
that suggests that, in other circumstances, The Rutles really could
have been bigger than you know who.
The Herald, September 2nd 2013
ends
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