“We’re back here and still doing it, that’s the big thing.”
Photo: Astrida Valigorsky/Getty Images
Much has been written about Ringo Starr’s natural razzmatazz and the outrageous broccoli consumption he undergoes to keep himself fit to tour. But have fans looking to see the current iteration of the 86-year-old’s All-Starr Band considered this fact: You get nearly as much Toto as you do Beatles. This revelation amused the crowd at Starr’s concert at Forest Hills Stadium last night, the drummer’s first time at the venue since the Beatles blew the roof off the joint two nights in a row in 1964.
Things were a bit different 62 years ago, when noise curfews weren’t enforced and you could buy a ticket at the box office for $2.95. (They even began their gigs at 9:50 p.m. back then, which, adjusted for decibel-flation, would now only get them ten minutes before the fines kick in.) For their North American tour, the Fab Four favored songs like “All My Loving,” “She Loves You,” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand”; present-day Starr is more playful, with “Octopus’s Garden,” “Yellow Submarine,” and “I Wanna Be Your Man” anchoring a setlist that saw him toggling between drums and lead vocals. One thing too playful: When Steve Lukather, Toto’s front man and the second-longest-serving All-Starr, started strumming the chords to “Day Tripper,” his boss shut him down and retorted, “Not that one.”
The significance of the evening was briefly remarked upon by Starr, who acknowledged, in that Liverpudlian lilt of his, it was a full-circle moment. “We’re back here and still doing it,” he said of performing live music, “that’s the big thing.” He offered a few peace-and-love signs to a woman near the front of the stage who held a poster saying she was in attendance in ’62. One tune, the Shirelles’ “Boys,” which the Beatles covered on their debut album, connects all three of Starr’s Forest Hills shows. “I did a song here and I was a bit surprised. I’m going to do the same song, because I do it every night,” he explained. “I was singing it even before that band you’re thinking of. With Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, I started doing this song.”
Starr, the king of Queens on October 1.
Photo: Donny Wightman
One person not in attendance, despite fans in the audience hoping he would be: Paul McCartney, who’s also in town to be a guest for Jimmy Kimmel Live!’s Brooklyn residency. (Really, pal? Too busy to do a jam for mollusks in the shade?) But after witnessing Starr close the concert with a jubilant “With a Little Help From My Friends” and an extended jumping-jack sequence in a glittery star blazer, the potential cameo was already forgotten.
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