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Beatles tribute band takes audience back in time

The Mersey Beatles

They can wear the clothing, play the music, but few Beatles tribute bands sound like actual Liverpudlians.

“There’s no script and we’re from Liverpool and we believe people want to hear the Liverpool humor as it was then because it’s how it is now," said Steven Howard, who performs as Paul McCartney in the Mersey Beatles and ends many of sentences with, "You know?"

"We don’t have to fake it or act very much. It comes quite naturally to us.”

The band — considered among the most authentic tribute bands of the Fab Four — plays two shows Wednesday at TheatreZone, on the Community School of Naples campus just north of Pine Ridge Road, off Livingston Road. 

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Howard, 46, helped form the tribute band in 1999 with three school buddies.

“At first we didn’t try to kind of, how can you put it, recreate their sound. We were more into just loving the Beatles and playing their music," Howard said in a recent telephone interview. 

It wasn't always that way, he noted. Howard said he grew up a fan of glam-rock that began in Great Britain in the 1970s and continued into the '80s. Glam-rock consisted of bands or musicians such as David Bowie, Mott the Hopple ("All The Young Dudes"), Slade ("Runaway") and others who wore outrageous outfits, make-up and hairstyles and were popular in music videos. 

The Mersey Beatles

When an assassin killed John Lennon in 1980, Howard said, he began focusing on the Beatles. He was 8 years old at the time. The BBC that night showed the 1965 film "Help!" in memory of Lennon and that drew him into the world of the Beatles even more, Howard said. 

“I remember being absolutely hooked and proud that these guys came from my home city," he said.

The Mersey Beatles then began to focus more on the real Beatles' extensive music catalog, which he said his band is still perfecting today. They became polished enough for the Cavern Club in Liverpool, where the Beatles made 292 appearances in the early 1960s.

The club in 2001 contacted the Mersey Beatles, who ended up performing more than 600 times there over a decade. 

“That’s maybe the best part of our journey, learning just how good they were," Howard said of the Beatles.

The Mersey Beatles over time evolved into a true tribute band, he said. Other members of the band — also Liverpudlians — are Mark Bloor (John Lennon), Brian Ambrose (Ringo Starr) and Craig McGown, a native of Glasgow, Scotland, who performs as George Harrison. 

A fifth member, Tony Cook, also of Liverpool, plays keyboards. 

Their show takes the audience on a journey, from the Beatles early years to the late 1960s when the band wore various costumes including the colorful outfits seen on the 1967 album cover of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." 

“Nowadays, with the costumes and the backdrops and all of that, the audience says they’re transported back in time," Howard said.

"Now that really is the aim is to transport back those who saw the Beatles for the first time, and for those who didn't experience it, to give them a taste of what it might have been like."

Howard said he's never met McCartney, and hopes he never does. 

“I wouldn’t know what to say to him," he added. "And I don’t want to spoil the whole mystique of it, you know.”

The Mersey Beatles

When: 4 and 8 p.m. Feb. 21

Where: TheatreZone, 13275 Livingston Road (just north of Pine Ridge Road), on the campus of The Community School of Naples 

Cost: $50, $60 or $75 

Information: theatrezone-florida.com