Review: THE BEATLES BRUNCH at City Winery Features Bottomless Brunch, Booze, and Beatles

Strawberry Fields has been covering the musical canon of The Beatles for over three decades. They have played so many venues in those thirty-plus years that it would take too long to name them all, but these days the Beatles cover band is playing City Winery in New York City, and this Sunday they will hit a milestone: their 100th performance in the Main Hall of the popular Pier 57 venue. For the occasion, THE BEATLES BRUNCH will welcome a special guest host, Q104.3'S Maria Milito, and it should be interesting to hear what the rock and roll aficionado has to say about the group and the band they honor with their shows. In anticipation for Strawberry Fields' one hundredth show, this writer decided to see what the Beatles Brunch is all about, at their April 16th performance.

The first thing you notice when entering the City Winery Main Stage for the Noon performance is that it's a wonderfully casual atmosphere. It is for the evening shows, too, but it's even more so at eleven am on a sunny Sunday morning - there is no pressure here, a person can come and just be themselves, with their friends or their family or both, and there was plenty of that kind of action on Sunday. Everywhere you looked, you could see people out for a good time over the weekend. There were tables filled with City Winery clientele ranging from tourists to New Yorkers, from the more seasoned set, drinking bottomless drink packages, to the family folks enjoying waffles and juice with the kiddie winkies. Between the all-you-can-eat buffet and the endless-refills coffee bar, the patrons of the establishment were certainly getting their money's worth, and at the tables at the back, where the grown-ups enjoyed the bottomless drink packages, everyone seemed happy to socialize while awaiting the arrival of Strawberry Fields, an arrival that happened unassumingly, as the four band members simply walked out onstage and took their places. There was no fanfare, there was no announcement, just a dimming of the lights as four men who don't look a thing like John, Paul, George, and Ringo stepped up to the mic.

The Strawberry Fields website declares each of these men - Tony Garofalo (John Lennon), Billy J. Ray (Paul McCartney), Ira Siegel (George Harrison), and Michael Bellusci (Ringo Starr) - to be impersonators of their famous counterparts. Wearing wigs that have seen better days and costumes evocative of the three eras in the lives of The Beatles, these four gentlemen may not look as much like The Fab Four as Debbie Wileman resembles Judy Garland, but it isn't in the reproducing of the looks where Strawberry Fields has found their three decade success - it is in the replication of the sound of The Beatles, and, there, they most definitely succeed.

The Beatles Brunch follows a chronological structure during which these gifted musicians and singers play fifty minutes of early Beatles (think "She Loves You" and "Eight Days A Week"), twenty minutes of Sergeant Pepper's era Beatles (thankfully, "Nowhere Man" and "Penny Lane") and twenty-five minutes of Seventies Beatles (the esential "I Am The Walrus" and "Don't Let Me Down"). With two breaks (one longer than the other) for costume changes, that's an almost two hour show of great music, music that everyone loves but doesn't get to hear performed live on any kind of regular basis. It is a treat to be in a room and hear these songs that we all love so much, to get up and dance (as the band encourages), to clap along with, and, sometimes, sing along with. The sound system at City Winery is first-rate, and with their crackerjack harmonies, vocals that do, indeed, earn the band members usage of the word 'impersonator' and marvelous musicianship that can elicit a vocal response, the music at The Beatles Brunch is genuinely enjoyable and pretty darn on the money. Mr. Siegel has some guitar solos that had the crowd cheering in appreciation, and Mr. Bellusci, behind his drums, rose to the occasion more than once. All four gentlemen know what they're doing and, clearly, are still enjoying doing it after their long tenure in the business. It is a program that is musically quite sound, and Sunday's audience enjoyed it so much that their own response to the onstage performance served as enhancement to the experience. Having obvious Beatles fans (of all ages, which does the heart good) in the house, reacting to hearing their personal favorites being played, lifted the spirits, with teenagers jumping in the air during the "Twist and Shout" segment, and little girls dancing with their daddies to "Day Tripper." It was a fun family time, to be sure, but it would be wrong to assume that, just because this is a family show that happens in the middle of the day, it isn't a completely professionally produced show. Ok, so the jokes can be a little corny (which the band admits) and some of the accent work won't win anyone an Academy Award, but the music, the singing, the musicianship is all worth listening to, is all worth enjoying, is all worth saying, afterward: "That was good."

There's no surprise that these Broadway actors and concert performers have had stellar careers away from their Beatles work, but there's also no surprise that they keep coming back to this gig because they're good. They're really good, and they are fun to watch, and they are respectful of the original band and the original music. Not every tribute show or cover group is successful at presenting a fully respectful representation of their honoree, but these four men, these four artists, are not interested in anything other than honoring their idols and preserving their musical legacy, and that goes a long way toward making a cover band popular and successful. That's what three decades and one hundred performances look like, and given the City Winery calendar, there is clear proof that there will be plenty more performances to come.

All this and waffles, too. Not bad for a Sunday afternoon in New York City.

Strawberry Fields plays their BEATLES BRUNCH every Sunday at City Winery with the doors opening for breakfast at 11 am and the performance beginning at 12 noon. Information and reservations can be accessed on the City Winery website HERE.

City Winery is also hosting the band monthly at the Hudson Valley location in Montgomery, NY. That website is HERE.

Sunday April 23rd is the 100th performance with guest host Maria Milito. THIS is the specific link for that show.

Strawberry Fields have a website that can be accessed HERE.

Learn more about Maria Milito HERE.

Photos by Stephen Mosher; Visit the Stephen Mosher website HERE.

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