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Oct 14, 2024

Britain’s Finest: The Complete Beatles Experience: Next best to the real thing | Tac | timesargus.com

The Beatles come to the Barre Opera House at 8 p.m. Friday in the form of Britain’s Finest: The Complete Beatles Experience. Barre Opera House The Barre Opera House presents Britain’s Finest: The

The Beatles come to the Barre Opera House at 8 p.m. Friday in the form of Britain’s Finest: The Complete Beatles Experience.

Barre Opera House The Barre Opera House presents Britain’s Finest: The Complete Beatles Experience at 8 p.m. Friday, April 12, on stage at 6 N. Main St. in Barre. Tickets are $33-$42; call 802-476-8188, or go online to

In a bright yellow room, four guys who look an awful lot like The Beatles file into a space crammed with drums, speakers, mics, a dozen guitars — and little else.

It’s a glimpse behind the scenes of a rehearsal of Britain’s Finest: The Complete Beatles Experience, at its home base in Los Angeles.

Later, on stage, the transformation is complete. The guys have fully morphed into the Fab Four, Beatles boots, wigs, and all. But they do it a little differently than other Beatles tribute bands.

If it’s been a hard day’s night, and you’ve been working like a dog, head to the Barre Opera House, at 8 p.m. Friday, April 12, to see share Britain’s Finest: The Complete Beatles Experience.

Last week, George Harrison talked about the show from Oklahoma, where they had a show that night.

OK, not the real George Harrison, but Robert Bielma, who plays the Beatle onstage and has had a connection with the band literally since birth.

“When I was a newborn my parents used to play Beatles all the time,” Bielma said. “My mom always said that was the only time that I would stop crying, or sleep, if she played Beatles. So, there’s always been some kind of connection.”

When his dad took him to see a tribute band called Beatlemania a few years later, Bielma’s fate was sealed.

“I said, ‘I can’t believe we saw (the) Beatles!’ My dad (said). ‘It’s just four guys pretending to be the Beatles.’ And I realized that’s what I wanted to do,” Bielma said.

He picked up the accordion, the trombone, the cello and guitar by age 13, and movies like “La Bamba” and “The Buddy Holly Story” inspired Bielma and his sister to use tennis racket guitars in their sold-out living room rock shows.

“I’m not going to say the typical — I wanted to meet girls,” he said about his inspiration to pursue the dream. “Because honestly it wasn’t that. I was in a band in high school and that did not help one bit. (Even as) a kid, I’ve always been musical.”

But in 2011, Bielma and then-bandmates found themselves in another band that wasn’t going so well.

“We were getting stiffed on pay from our agent so we decided to put a band together where we ran the band ourselves,” he said. “We were four equal partners, that’s how it started.”

Today, the band — Armando Amaya (John Lennon), Jay Nixon (Paul McCartney), Brendan Peleo-Lazar (Ringo Starr) and Bielma — has continued what was started a decade ago, playing sold-out shows all over the world, including International Beatleweek, an annual event that brings vetted acts to Liverpool.

“It’s an international thing where everybody that loves the Beatles gets together,” Bielma said. “Whether we speak the same language or we don’t, we’re speaking the language of the Beatles.”

“There are other Beatle tribute bands we work with or compete against,” he acknowledged, but what his brings to the stage is a little different. “We modernize it a bit,” he said.

First, The Beatles Experience channels the Beatles wit, charm, and energy in costume, sound, and on-stage banter like the iconic performances of the 1960s. The stage looks clean and sparse like it did then, but in-ear monitors help keep the sound sharp.

“That’s one of the compliments we get all the time — everything sounds so crisp and clear,” Bielma said. “We use the latest guitar systems to get a modern version of the original sound of the Beatles.”

“We always get lighting directors (asking), are you looking for that ’60s look, and we say ‘no.’ We want a modern look,” he said. “If the Beatles had the ability to get a modern light system, they’d use it.”

“So that’s our model, modern but still … old school,” Bielma said, and headed out for a sound check for that night’s show.

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The Barre Opera House presents Britain’s Finest: The Complete Beatles Experience at 8 p.m. Friday, April 12, on stage at 6 N. Main St. in Barre. Tickets are $33-$42; call 802-476-8188, or go online to barreoperahouse.org