Culture
The Fab Four to bring world renowned Beatles tribute to Marietta
By: Emily Votaw
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MARIETTA, Ohio (WOUB) — The Fab Four: The Ultimate Tribute is headed to the Peoples Bank Theatre in Marietta (222 Putnam St.) Friday, September 2 for a nightlong musical and visual tribute to the four unlikely boys from Liverpool who changed the world before any of them were even 30 years old.
Gavin Pring is one quarter of The Fab Four, playing the part of Beatles guitarist and spiritual jokester George Harrison. Not only does Pring share Harrison’s hometown of Liverpool, Pring has also been hearing people tell him he looks like “the quiet one” for, well, ever.
At first he heard it from his aunt, and then from write-ups in local newspapers who had seen Pring perform original music in and around Liverpool.
Then came the big one: a girlfriend of Pring’s took the initiative to sign him up to audition for a part in the “Best of the Beatles,” a documentary focused on the story of one of the most famous candidates for the title of “fifth Beatle,” Pete Best.
“I was working in customs at the time – I was an actual taxman!” Pring said. “I went over to do the audition and Pete Best was there. When he saw me, he said, ‘oh, this is the guy who’s playing George.’ He didn’t really even audition me. So that’s how I started. From then on, I learned to play the music of The Beatles, and eventually I ended up with the zenith of The Fab Four, which is the best Beatles tribute act in the world, you know?”
Judging by the myriad of honors The Fab Four have received since their start back in 1997, Pring might be right. In 2013 the group received an Emmy for the PBS special “The Fab Four: The Ultimate Tribute,” making them the only tribute band to earn such an honor; they’ve performed as the headliner for Liverpool’s annual Beatleweek multiple times; they even served as motion capture models for the Cirque du Soleil Beatles LOVE Show’s 10th anniversary in 2017.
Pring has also accumulated accolades of his own over the years. George Harry’s Son is Pring’s side act, and they’ve brought spot-on renditions of Harrison’s solo work to stages all over – including the International Beatle Week in Liverpool and the Abbey Road On the River in the U.S.
“There’s a big difference between being 15 years of age and 18 years of age,” Pring said. “And George was almost three years younger than John – so when John was trying to do something like cop off with girls, he’d have this little shadow 15-year-old George hanging around – and I don’t think that condescending attitude towards George ever left John – he always looked at George like a little brother, the kind of little brother who is annoying sometimes.”
In the end, however, Pring said George came to be respected by all of The Beatles, with John Lennon going so far as to say that the two best songs on “Abbey Road” were ones George had written: “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun.” Harrison is also famously responsible for the integration of more Eastern-influenced sounds into the deeply influential band’s sound.
“There’s a big difference between being 15 years of age and 18 years of age. And George was almost three years younger than John – so when John was trying to do something like cop off with girls, he’d have this little shadow 15-year-old George hanging around – and I don’t think that condescending attitude towards George ever left John – he always looked at George like a little brother, the kind of little brother who is annoying sometimes.” – Gavin Pring
Pring said one of the reasons The Beatles continue to be so important, even so many decades after their break-up, is that they managed to pen songs running the gamut of human experience.
“The thing with The Beatles is that their music spans all of the emotions that you can have as a human,” Pring said. “They’ve got a song for love, loss, anger, fear. It’s music we all connect to no matter what generation we are from.”
The Fab Four: The Ultimate Tribute plays the Peoples Bank Theatre in Marietta Friday, September 2. Find more information at this link. Follow The Fab Four by visiting their website, or their social media pages on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.