Beat Magazine - London, Ontario, Canada
Yurimania Hits Port Stanley
Beat Magazine
March 12, 2010
By Dave Ferguson
Port Stanley - If you combined John, Paul, George and yes even Ringo into one person the end result would be a dynamically gifted musician. A person of that calibre was blatantly obvious on stage Friday, March 12th at the Port Stanley Festival Theatre in the performance given by Yuri Pool. I imagined one of the Fab Four performing in a reincarnated version stand on stage with nothing more than an acoustic guitar and a keyboard creating Yurimania. This evening had Yuri doing a solo act, a departure from the group he founded called The McCartney Years.
The Beatle bug bit Yuri when he was just six years old after hearing A Hard Day’s Night and Can’t Buy Me Love while traveling in a car with his parents back in Holland and grew from there. In July of 2007, Yuri and other musicians were fortunate enough to open for Mariah Carey in Moscow Russia where she confided that she would love to be able to perform Yesterday, which was included during tonight’s performance. His travels have even taken him to Abbey Road Studio number 2 where the Beatles recorded much of their material.
Port Stanley - If you combined John, Paul, George and yes even Ringo into one person the end result would be a dynamically gifted musician. A person of that calibre was blatantly obvious on stage Friday, March 12th at the Port Stanley Festival Theatre in the performance given by Yuri Pool. I imagined one of the Fab Four performing in a reincarnated version stand on stage with nothing more than an acoustic guitar and a keyboard creating Yurimania. This evening had Yuri doing a solo act, a departure from the group he founded called The McCartney Years.
The Beatle bug bit Yuri when he was just six years old after hearing A Hard Day’s Night and Can’t Buy Me Love while traveling in a car with his parents back in Holland and grew from there. In July of 2007, Yuri and other musicians were fortunate enough to open for Mariah Carey in Moscow Russia where she confided that she would love to be able to perform Yesterday, which was included during tonight’s performance. His travels have even taken him to Abbey Road Studio number 2 where the Beatles recorded much of their material.
Yuri’s performance captivated, enticed and left us in awe as he performed music by the Beatles and into the McCartney years. All of the songs in his vast set list took us back to the roots of many songs as they were heard originally at Abbey Road Studio before laying down additional tracks and arrangements. What a library of music to choose from with over 250 songs in the Beatles repertoire without even venturing in the solo efforts for the four. Even the McCartney tunes like Band OnThe Run and Silly Love Songs did not sound any different without additional musical accompaniment. Yuri’s stripped down version A Day InThe Life sounded spot on perfect as an acoustic arrangement.
The crowd was a diverse cross section of ages from teens to seniors in the packed, sold- out show – the crowd clapped, sang along and even danced as we were all whisked away in time, which just proves that Beatles music is just as popular today as it was during the ’60s. Their timeless and ageless melodies, lyrics and music that cross different genres will continue to have an audience for many years. If there are performers like Yuri that play to perfection and can take you on a musical journey adding Beatles historical notes during the show in the same fashion as Friday night the music of the Lads from Liverpool will live forever.
Never have I heard such talent, precision, perfection and love of craft, as when Yuri played intricate and over-dubbed Beatles songs in an acoustic session. He played an encore but the audience and I were left wanting more. Is it because we miss John, Paul, George and Ringo? Do we feel a void dating back to the late ’60s? Perhaps we want to return, for some of us, back to our youth. Whatever the reason, Yuri Pool and The McCartney Years is a definite must see anytime and is certainly worthy of repeating often. Sid Bernstein, the man who was responsible for bringing The Beatles to the United States summed up The McCartney years as, “the best on the scene today.”
Wrapping up this series, presented by Centrepiece Marketing and Port Stanley Festival Theatre is Valdy on April 16th, 2010. Get tickets now while they are still available.
Dave Ferguson resides in Aylmer and has been writing for the past 15 years with works appearing in Relish Elgin, The Beat, Readers Digest, Owl Magazine, Canadian Sports Magazine, Canadian Hockey Parent, Rinkside and a myriad of newspapers. He is also the Chairperson and contributing member of the St. Thomas Creative Writer’s Workshop, a member of the London Writer’s Group, PWAC (Professional Writer’s Association of Canada, a radio broadcaster at CHRW and a Board member for Canvas and Quill Studios in St. Thomas.