The Cavern Club Beatles
The Cavern Club Beatles is the Cavern Club's resident tribute band to The Beatles, and the band plays almost every Friday and Saturday... and they are phenomenal. They are about as close to the real thing as anybody will ever get - though I expected nothing else. The Cavern Club is, after all, famous for launching The Beatles.
All from Merseyside (more or less!) the group consists of Adam Hastings (John Lennon), Tony Coburn (Paul McCartney), Paul Jones (George Harrison), and Chris Sharrock (Ringo Starr). Adam, it must be said, when in costume, is a dead ringer for John Lennon - to an almost scary extent. It is easy to suspend belief that you are indeed watching the world's greatest band when looking at him... and whilst the other three aren't total dead ringers for their parts as Adam is, when they sing they are The Beatles, and nobody could argue any differently.
Originally in a band called The Blue Meanies, which played down the road from the Cavern Club, Tony Coburn first met Paul Jones when he would come with his group, "he was a lot younger than us, and then he got up and played with us... we'd done our thing and they'd done their thing and then Paul went away to work on cruise ships." Paul Jones joined a cruise ship band.
Adam, prior to joining the CCB, was a member of the Bootleg Beatles, another Beatles tribute band. He also played George Harrison in a previous band.
Tony went off to live in Australia, though returned for a short holiday: "[upon returning] they were auditioning for John and Paul in a show called 'The Sessions'..." the audition was in front of Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick, "and I had no interest in it. I was on holiday so didn't want to do it. They said 'well could you just come in and sing with Jimmy, we want to hear you sing together." Emerick later said that Tony was the closest sounding to McCartney that anybody could ever get. After that audition, Tony and Jimmy were offered a part in a show. He came back from Australia to do that, and didn't go back. "I spoke to Bill Heckle [Cavern Club director] and was a bit like 'we want to put a Beatles show in the Cavern'. He said he had an idea to do that himself, so then we had a John and Paul - which was me and Jimmy - and we needed a George." He asked Paul Jones, who was still on a cruise ship. Paul came back, and then they had a drummer called Steve Finnigan, "Steve Finnigan looked exactly like Ringo... one night he fell over and banged his head and then we rang Chris [Sharrock]."
Chris Sharrock had previously played with bands such as Oasis and The Icicle Works. He currently plays with Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds. Initially, the CCB were unsure if Chris would play with them, "but because he's such a big Beatles fan he was like 'yeah I'm on my way in a taxi.'"
The Cavern Club Beatles have been playing together for ten years, and repeatedly draw in huge crowds. Every show that I am fortunate enough to see is amazing.
"Every band in the world is different," said Adam when asked about how playing with the CCB differs to the Fab Four or the Bootleg Beatles. "The Bootleg Beatles was a different experience every night. Fab Four's nice because touring America and there's a whole different take on it. This [the CCB] is cool because you've got the regular rhythm of it all... all the bands are great."
