When it comes to cover bands, The Bootleg Beatles are the real deal.
Ever since launching in the UK with an intimate show in 1980, the group have embarked on many world tours – and several different line-ups – playing the best of the Fab Four.
Such is their precision, from the pitch-perfect recreation of hits to the onstage banter and costumes, The Bootleg Beatles are viewed as the ultimate tribute act to the Liverpool quartet. They even landed a slot among modern rock giants at the UK's Glastonbury Festival in 2015.
Now it's time for the UAE to relive the magic with the group playing two shows at Dubai Opera, on Wednesday and Thursday.
Tyson Kelly, who will don the circular shades of John Lennon on stage, says the two-hour show will be split into four parts, tracing the group's evolution from the giddy hits of the early 1960s (She Loves You and I Want to Hold Your Hand) to the psychedelia of later albums such as 1967's Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and 1969's Abbey Road.
For the love of The Beatles
However, simply landing the right chords is not enough.
It is a passion for the band's legendary material, says Kelly, which sets the group apart from other tribute acts.
“This is really what makes us, without boasting too much about what we do, as one of the best when it comes to playing these songs,” the American singer says. “While all of us are musicians, it is really about having that love for the material and people have been responding to that.”
When the band was looking for a new Lennon in 2018, producers couldn’t have found a more ready-made choice than Kelly.
Not only does he share similar features with the star, but he was also steeped in Beatlemania, having played Lennon in US tribute shows The Fab Four and Classical Mystery Tour.
With a side career as a singer-songwriter in his own right, Kelly says playing Lennon's famed The Beatles compositions such as A Day in The Life and Rubber Soul remains an educational experience.
He supports the argument shared by critics that Lennon penned more adventurous material than Beatles co-songwriter Paul McCartney.
"Playing the songs only made me realise that more," he says. "When it comes to playing different instruments, I would say that McCartney was a more talented musician. But when it comes to interesting chord progression, songwriting and lyrics, then John is way more impressive. If you look at the full Beatles collection, including their solo careers, Lennon's work is deeper when it comes to craftsmanship."
Move your feet
And what about guitarist George Harrison?
His song contributions to The Beatles are as spectacular as they are limited. The Bootleg Beatles will also play his stunning compositions While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Something – the latter being the group's most covered song after Yesterday.
“It was kind of tough for George because he was among two songwriting giants in the band,” says English guitarist and singer Stephen White, who has been playing Harrison in the show since 2014.
“When you've got Lennon and McCartney standing next to you and you bring in a few songs and they've probably got 30 songs they want to put on that album, then it really has to be amazing.”
With members studying hours of The Beatles concert coverage to perfect their moves on stage, he describes the show as more a loving salute than a recreation of a live show of the group.
Which is just as well, perhaps, as it could be tough to keep up with the vigour of their heyday.
“When you see video footage of The Beatles concerts, they are often standing and singing in front of the microphone,” White says. “But it is all in the feet, man. They were energetic and I have worn down a few shoe soles doing these shows.”
The Bootleg Beatles perform at Dubai Opera, Downtown Dubai, on Wednesday and Thursday, January 27 and 28 at 8pm. Tickets from Dh145 at dubaiopera.com
Who has been sanctioned?
Daniella Weiss and Nachala
Described as 'the grandmother of the settler movement', she has encouraged the expansion of settlements for decades. The 79 year old leads radical settler movement Nachala, whose aim is for Israel to annex Gaza and the occupied West Bank, where it helps settlers built outposts.
Harel Libi & Libi Construction and Infrastructure
Libi has been involved in threatening and perpetuating acts of aggression and violence against Palestinians. His firm has provided logistical and financial support for the establishment of illegal outposts.
Zohar Sabah
Runs a settler outpost named Zohar’s Farm and has previously faced charges of violence against Palestinians. He was indicted by Israel’s State Attorney’s Office in September for allegedly participating in a violent attack against Palestinians and activists in the West Bank village of Muarrajat.
Coco’s Farm and Neria’s Farm
These are illegal outposts in the West Bank, which are at the vanguard of the settler movement. According to the UK, they are associated with people who have been involved in enabling, inciting, promoting or providing support for activities that amount to “serious abuse”.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Six large-scale objects on show
- Concrete wall and windows from the now demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate in Poplar
- The 17th Century Agra Colonnade, from the bathhouse of the fort of Agra in India
- A stagecloth for The Ballet Russes that is 10m high – the largest Picasso in the world
- Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1930s Kaufmann Office
- A full-scale Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, which transformed kitchen design in the 20th century
- Torrijos Palace dome
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
LILO & STITCH
Starring: Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Maia Kealoha, Chris Sanders
Director: Dean Fleischer Camp
Rating: 4.5/5
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TOUCH RULES
Touch is derived from rugby league. Teams consist of up to 14 players with a maximum of six on the field at any time.
Teams can make as many substitutions as they want during the 40 minute matches.
Similar to rugby league, the attacking team has six attempts - or touches - before possession changes over.
A touch is any contact between the player with the ball and a defender, and must be with minimum force.
After a touch the player performs a “roll-ball” - similar to the play-the-ball in league - stepping over or rolling the ball between the feet.
At the roll-ball, the defenders have to retreat a minimum of five metres.
A touchdown is scored when an attacking player places the ball on or over the score-line.
Company%20profile%20
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Global Fungi Facts
• Scientists estimate there could be as many as 3 million fungal species globally
• Only about 160,000 have been officially described leaving around 90% undiscovered
• Fungi account for roughly 90% of Earth's unknown biodiversity
• Forest fungi help tackle climate change, absorbing up to 36% of global fossil fuel emissions annually and storing around 5 billion tonnes of carbon in the planet's topsoil
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The specs
Engine: Long-range single or dual motor with 200kW or 400kW battery
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Max touring range: 620km / 590km
Price: From Dh250,000 (estimated)
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Lamsa
Founder: Badr Ward
Launched: 2014
Employees: 60
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: EdTech
Funding to date: $15 million
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Sustainable Development Goals
1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation
10. Reduce inequality within and among countries
11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its effects
14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development
More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
The Bio
Hometown: Bogota, Colombia
Favourite place to relax in UAE: the desert around Al Mleiha in Sharjah or the eastern mangroves in Abu Dhabi
The one book everyone should read: 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It will make your mind fly
Favourite documentary: Chasing Coral by Jeff Orlowski. It's a good reality check about one of the most valued ecosystems for humanity