If you follow this blog, you know that my favorite group is the Beatles. I’ve been a fan since the early 80s thanks to Keith (Corky) Johnson loaning me all his Beatles albums during my first semester at the University of Kentucky. I’ve seen Paul McCartney three times in concert, most recently a couple of months ago. You probably know the only other living Beatle is Ringo Starr who is actually older than Paul (he is 79 as of this post). For some reason, it has never occurred to me to try and see Ringo in concert. I happened to get some sort of alert from Ticketmaster that he was playing in Champaign Illinois. Why would I even consider going there you might ask? I actually am somewhat familiar with Champaign. We go through it on our trips to see Josh and Shelby. If you go one mile east of the I-57/I-74 interchange, there is fabulous exit with a lot of good restaurants (Culvers, Longhorn and Einstein Bros). The Drury Inn at this exit is really good. And if you are willing to go a mile or so off the exit, there is a Krispy Kreme and a Portillos. Anyway, by the time I got in and tried to buy a ticket, the good seats were all gone. I checked around a bit and found he would playing with his All-Starr Band in Nashville. There were some good single seats left, so I went for it.
As I began to research, I found out that for years (since 1989), Ringo Starr has assembled several iterations of what is called “The All-Starr Band”. He gets other famous rock stars (usually four) and they play together. He’s had guys like Joe Walsh, Todd Rundgren, and Billy Squier. The current band is his Fourteenth iteration. The band is comprised of Steve Lukather of Toto, Colin Hay of Men at Work, Gregg Rolie of Santana, and Hannish Stuart of the Average White Band. I checked a few set lists and about half the songs are by Ringo. They either Beatles songs or his solo songs. At different points in the show, he’ll go back and play drums and the others will do about three songs each. This all sounded very intriguing. I got my hotel room in Goodlettsville (the rooms were much cheaper there) and got a Parkwhiz a block away from the Venue.
The day of the concert came and I headed for Goodlettsville (with a brief detour). I ate dinner and headed for downtown Nashville. The traffic was fine until I got to Downtown Nashville. Turns out that in addition to the All-Starr Band playing at Ryman Auditorium, John Legend was playing at Bridgestone Arena. So, downtown Nashville was a madhouse. Fortunately, I left early and was in no rush. The police were directing traffic so that did help. I finally made it to my parking garage and still got into the Ryman in plenty of time.
This was my first trip to the Ryman. It was the original home of the Grand Old Opry (before they moved it to the Opryland Megaplex). It took me a little bit of time to find the entrance (around back) but I finally made it in. It’s a beautiful facility. It used to be a church building and still has stained glass windows. You even sit in pews (with your seat number on the back to tell you where to sit). There is a main floor and a balcony. The facility seats only about 2300 people. The bathrooms were even nice. A friendly usher pointed me to my seat. I was about twelve rows from the stage. I settled in to wait for the concert to start.
Unlike his counterpart Mr. McCartney, Ringo and his band started right on time. They started with the Carl Perkins/Beatles classic Matchbox. Ringo sang his solo hit “It Don’t Come Easy”. He then did the song “What Goes On” by the Beatles. This is the only Beatles song that he shared writing credit with John Lennon and Paul McCartney with (the credit shows as Lennon/McCartney/Starkey). Then, each of the members of the All-Starr band did a song they were famous for. I especially enjoyed Rosanna by Steve Lukather and “Down Under” by Colin Hay. They brought back memories of my teen-age and college years. This process was repeated throughout the concert. Ringo actually left the stage during one set of the others playing. Steve Lukather did Africa and “Hold the Line” and Colin Hay did “Who Can It Be Now” and Overkill. Ringo did several Beatles songs (Don’t Pass Me By and Yellow Submarine) plus solo hits (You’re Sixteen and Photograph). He closed with the Buck Owens song (and a personal Beatles favorite of mine) “Act Naturally”. Finally, they closed with “A Little Help From My Friends” (with a riff of “Give Peace a Chance” mixed in). Interestingly enough, when the band came out from to take their bow, Ringo left the stage and didn’t do that with them. Also, this ended up being first concert I’ve been to (that I can remember anyway) that no encore was done. The show lasted about two hours.
I did run into one issue when leaving. I had parked in a multi tiered parking garage. I should have learned my lesson from attending Cardinal ballgames but I didn’t (at least I’d forgotten). It took about thirty minutes to wind out of the parking garage. At least, we dodged the crowd leaving the John Legend show. It actually took less time to get from Nashville to Goodlettsville then to exit the garage. But that was a very minor annoyance. I really enjoyed the concert, especially in the venue of the Ryman. If you have the opportunity to see the All-Starr band, I’d recommend you go especially if you are Beatles fan or a fan of one the groups represented.
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