Beatlemania....50 years later

Last night, I went down to the Rivers Casino with DB~ and her family (my future in-laws). We met her mom, dad, sister, brother, and her other brother with his wife (in from Philly). The purpose of the visit was to see a Beatles cover band perform 2 hours of Beatles songs.

As my one future brother-in-law said, only the Beatles could put on a 2 hour show where nearly EVERYONE in the audience knew the words.

The concert was held in the really nice outdoor amphitheatre outside the Rivers Casino. With the boats on the Ohio as a backdrop and a perfect sunny night, it was really a very nice setting. I'm not a Beatles fan by any stretch. I appreciate their contribution to music and respect their place, but I'm not a fan. But there were some people here that were true believers, both young and old.

The strange part is that this band dressed up like them. The first half of the show was their "early" phase...complete with them dressed in black suits and mod haircuts. After intermission, there was a costume change and the band was in their Sgt. Pepper phase for the rest of the show. They even had fake British accents!

I guess for some of the audience, it was a chance to recapture their youth and for some others it was a chance, albeit through artificial means, to see a band that they were either not born yet or too young to see when they were in their heyday. The whole place was packed solid.

The strange part of the night for me, as a detached observer, had nothing to do with the Beatles. We had all positioned ourselves to the right of the stage down by the river. Well, right beside us, leaning against the railing by the river was a guy who (I think/hope) fashioned himself as a Gene Simmons look-a-like (of Kiss fame). Eventually people's attention wandered from the show and noticed "Hey, that guy down there looks like Gene Simmons!" So slowly, a small crowd of people made their way down to have their photo taken with him -- replete with devil horn signs, of course. But Fake Gene Simmons just kind of took it all in...he never really smiled or posed, just sort of let them take his picture with him.

I just wondered what would have happened if a lady with fake breast implants got her picture taken with Fake Gene Simmons while a Fake Beatles band played in the background. Time and space, as we presently know it, may have ceased to exist.

P.S. - I've been to the Rivers now 3 times and have only given them money via the slot machines 1 time. Slots to me seem like a boring, robotic waste of time and money