For a lot of people, it don’t come easy being 77 years old.
But Ringo Starr has found the formula. All he has to do is Act Naturally.
That’s what he did on Tuesday with his All Starr Band at Morristown’s Mayo Performing Arts Center, and the packed house ate it up.
“Love doesn’t always get here on time,” the former Beatle mused after Steve Lukather roared through his Toto hit, Hold the Line. “Personally, I don’t give a damn what time it comes, as long as it’s comin’ in!”
Ringo was the last member to join the Fab Four, and the first solo Beatle to score 10 Top 10 hits. He sang some of them on Tuesday: It Don’t Come Easy, Photograph, Back Off Boogaloo and You’re Sixteen, a contender for the next campaign anthem in Alabama.
From his Beatles years, Ringo picked Matchbox, Don’t Pass Me By (leaving his drum kit to pound out a keyboard intro), Act Naturally, Boys, Yellow Submarine and I Wanna Be Your Man.
He introduced What Goes On as the only song credited to Lennon, McCartney and Starkey. “I wasn’t going to use them, but they begged and they cried,” he quipped. Ringo closed the two-hour concert by singing With a Little Help from My Friends / Give Peace a Chance.
He had plenty of help from his friends, actually. Virtually the same All Starr lineup played MPAC in 2012; Todd Rundgren noted that with six years under its collective belt, this band is poised to lap the “original group,” i.e. John, Paul, George and Ringo.
Bassist Richard Page (formerly of Mr. Mister), keyboard player Gregg Rolie (Santana, Journey, drummer Gregg Bissonette and sax player Warren Ham rounded out the ensemble.
Slideshow photos by Kevin Coughlin:
These days it must be great fun to be great-grandfather Ringo Starr. The sickly kid from Liverpool survived Beatlemania, dabbled in movies, married a Bond girl, tamed some personal demons, starred in the kids show Shining Time Station, published three books of photos, and graduated from drummer to front man.
People of a certain age still swoon in his presence.
When Ringo returned a fan’s shouted declaration of love with “I love you too, babe,” the woman gushed that she now can die happy; her life is complete. Anyone too young to grasp this should catch Ron Howard’s Eight Days a Week–The Touring Years, on PBS on Nov. 25, 2017.
If you can’t be Ringo, being a friend of Ringo is the next best thing.
Lukather, Rundgren, Page and Rolie all professed admiration, and their gratitude for the friendships forged because of him.
Ranging in age from 58 to 70, these All Starrs looked like they were having the times of their lives on Tuesday.
Rolie struggled to keep Lukather from shouldering him off his piano bench during one playful solo; Lukather and Rundgren engaged in friendly roughhousing while crooning backup vocals on Boys.
Ringo let them all shine, and they responded with a jukebox full of ’70s- and ’80s hits that shimmered and soared. Lukather’s selections included Rosanna and Africa.
Page added Kyrie and Broken Wings, and a new ballad, You Are Mine (Ringo tapped a cajon).
Rolie led smoking versions of Evil Ways, Black Magic Woman and Oye Como Va. The towering Rundgren, easily the most animated character on stage, contributed I Saw the Light, Love is the Answer and Bang the Drum All Day.
Something for everyone, as Page declared near the outset. It did not feel like a nostalgia show — there were no video homages to the Beatles, à la Paul McCartney’s September concerts in Newark.
Those events were magical, too, in a different way. Paul’s superb bandmates were sidemen, helping him mine a much deeper vein of material than Ringo can offer. The Beatles’ legacy infused Paul’s shows; Ringo hinted at it.
Happily, fans still need them both–long after they have turned 64.
One only can wonder how John and George would have burnished the Fab legacy, if given the chance.
