What an interesting evening! I’m pretty much the only person on the face of the planet who has never listened to a Beatles album. Sure, I’ve heard singles all over the place, but I’ve never experienced the discography. To say that I was a bit out of my element attending a Beatles cover band concert would be to engage in the wonderful practice of understatement.

Brandy, Gareth, and I met up with a few other people for dinner at Baby’s before heading over to the State College central parklet for a free concert by The Cast of Beatlemania (The Cast, for short).

We got there an hour in advance and found very little seating space remaining. As a result, we spread our blanket right in front of the left stack of speakers. We were about 10 feet away from them, and they were loud. So loud, in fact, that my left ear started experiencing massive pain, forcing me to get up and walk away for a bit until my hearing returned. While I awaited that, I walked to the grocery on Allen and picked up a bag of cotton balls. That did the trick. I was able to enjoy the rest of the concert without pain.

Poor Brandy hasn’t figured out yet that I don’t smile or dance or move or otherwise indicate when I’m enjoying a concert. To be honest, I wasn’t really into the first half because of the music. Once they got into the second half, the Sgt. Pepper/psychedelic period, I was much more into the performance. All told, I did really enjoy the concert and thought the band did a great job. My opinion is relatively uninformed, though, because of my lack of prior concentrated Beatles exposure.

My camera got quite the workout, though only a handful of the shots are presentable . But wait, there’s more! I don’t usually remember that my camera can record video. Tonight, I remembered. So for your viewing enjoyment, assuming your employer has not blocked YouTube, which mine has, here are The Cast of Beatlemania performing some song I don’t know: