"Let It Be"
Nottingham Royal Concert Hall.

It's very rare that you see four unknown performers get a total standing ovation but tonight Emanuele Angeletti, Reuven Gershon, Luke Roberts and John Brosnan had the Royal Concert Hall on their feet. We came together and needed no help yelling for more even after they left the stage.

This is no jukebox musical like "Mamma Mia" and "Tonight's The Night", this is a full blown concert mixed with a magical history tour of the 1960's.

Starting from the Cavern Club we meet four young moptops and all the way through to the "White Album" and a much more serious foursome, We are treated to 39 excellently produced Beatles classics. We are given a ticket to ride to the Shea Stadium and to the Royal Variety Show, through the Sgt Pepper period, a beautiful acoustic session, the hippy period of "discovery" of The Magical Mystery Tour all the way to the end when they got back on stage with a brilliant finale of "Get Back", "Let It Be" and "Hey Jude".

So many brilliant Beatles classics but the absolute highlight for me was "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" which was just out of this world with an amazing solo by John Brosnan as George Harrison. Each of the four had solo spots and Emanuele Angeletti as Paul, who by the way is not a natural left hand bass player, was sublime in his version of "Yesterday" and "Blackbird".

If you can imagine (no pun intended John) a Beatles concert happening today, then this is what it would sound like. A really powerful and chunky sound with brilliant harmonies. Great musicianship which really showcased all four of the lads, plus the keyboard/synthesiser player at the back, giving it a full layered sound.

Talking of sound, these four sounded almost as good as the Beatles, I say almost because no one can quite match up to the Fab Four, but these fabulous four came as near as damn it to being spot on. It was quite spooky hearing John Lennon's voice coming from Reuven Gershon.

And what a lightshow! It was of stadium proportions worthy of a band with the back catalogue of varied musical origins such as the Beatles had. Humphrey McDermott's extensive experience in this field, quite literally lit up the place, especially in the lighting for "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds".

The costumes were brilliant, as were the wigs, plus there was wonderful video footage from the era of the songs played in the background and keeping us entertained while the next set of scenes were set up. TV and news clips as well as 60's TV advertisements were an education, a clever distraction from the stage crew's meanderings.

If we hadn't lost half of this group and they could all reform for one greatest hits concert, then this is what they would,hopefully sound like. Plus there was a nice updated touch with Ringo asking if we remembered what CD's looked like in the 60's and produced a long playing record where there was another CD on the flip side, and John calling Ringo "The Fat Controller", a flashback to Ringo's voicing of "Thomas The Tank Engine". There were no lighters allowed for the stadium-style anthems so we got our mobile phones out and switched on the screens and flashlights to light up the room.

This is a brilliant show which had the audience, me included, on their feet and singing along. We will never see the originals again in this atmosphere but this is the closest I'll ever get in my life, and that's good enough for me. We'll never forget the brilliant words and music of Lennon & McCartney and while there are shows like "Let It Be" around we'll always have the experience of what could have been.I left feeling so much more than fine.

"Let It Be" is at the Nottingham Royal Concert Hall until Saturday 9 July 2016.