1964 The Tribute - Mission

Mission

The band's mission is to accurately recreate the 1964 Beatle invasion of America. They play a set of all early Beatles music, with some middle Beatles thrown in. The "concept is performing a show that gives you an idea of what it was like to see the Beatles when they were touring," says Benson. "It's definitely a music gig, but there's an acting element to it," says Tom Work. "None of us is really an actor per se. I probably come closest because I've done some plays, just in community theater. But there's some acting. You need to adopt the body language, the speaking voice. Those two things, I guess, for this kind of a role are two aspects that resemble acting. Everything else is more musicianship and vocal impersonation — singing, I mean." The group separates its life onstage from offstage. "We didn't want to be them, just wanted to portray them," says Work. "No one really considered wearing those boots around all the time or the tight pants or having hair that looked like that. We were musicians before, professional, full-time musicians. We didn't start doing Beatles until we were 30."