CLICK TO SEE SIGNONSANDIEGO'S FANTASTIC VIDEO PIECE ON THE NOONTIME PERFORMANCE

Phew.  We ended the busiest month Cover Me Badd has ever had with this fantastic day of getting three stories high and rocking downtown with Beatles songs whether they wanted them or not.  It took us hours to get all of our equipment elevated and running.  We set up just in time to start around noon and only then could we relax enough to see how many friends and strangers had come out on such a beautiful January day.  The Beatles were so cold that they couldn't feel their fingers and borrowed their wives' coats (possibly an old wives tale) but San Diego was 78 and sunny.  I love this place.

The Beatles US are the best, most modest and least rehearsed Beatles coverband on earth.  True to form, we surprised even ourselves by not ruining England's finest exports on just three rehearsals and no monitors (eek).  Laura Jane from the Tighten Ups helped tons and sang the hell out of "Dig A Pony", complete with John Lennon commemorative lyricsheet/clipboard. We kept waiting for someone to complain about the noise but it wasn't until much later that we found this young Bob Dylan-hating officeworker bitchin' on Yelp. Signonsandiego did a beautiful job of capturing what a great afternoon it was and had this awesome video up online just a few hours after we played.  The baby at the end is none other than Dylan's latest creation, Stella PRUDENCE Martinez. Afterwards, it was off to House of Blues, who were nice enough to send our flyer out to their 10,000 Myspace friends and feed us for being do-gooders after they'd fed 600 people in just two hours at the premiere of their new lunch buffet (thanks, Natalie!). 

We took turns babysitting equipment and resting at home (some of us more than others, sorry guys) and regrouped for the 8pm set to find an international incident brewing. An interesting soul who had claimed to be the soul of John Lennon and dangled off of the balcony at noon had offered to return at 8pm with his security guard co-workers and pretend to haul us off. Sounded good to us until we found out that he'd actually been terminated from said job early that morning and when he called his former fellow-employees about getting into our act, they told their boss who had come down to the mall looking for him. It was wackiness straight out of A Hard Day's Night but with a screw loose (if you're reading this now, please don't kill us, Mr John Winston O'Boogie).

The nighttime set was even bigger and better than the noontime blast.  All of the people who couldn't ditch work and get downtown showed up in droves.  Plus we had superstars Josh Smith and Emily James-Kanis sitting in with us from the San Diego School of Rock and Emily's dad Jon Kanis sang one too even though he spells his name without an H.  The highlight of the day came when hundreds of bicyclists from Critical Mass came pedaling through Broadway Circle and cheered as Adam serenaded them with Queen's "Bicycle Race".  Thank god, someone we don't know got video and posted it:


A fantastic day and night we'll never forget plus $160+ was thrown in a bucket for the Tighten Ups. Go see them play and give them lots of money. It'll be instant karma, we promise. Thanks to everyone who helped, played, cheered and heckled us!  Rebecca from Horton Plaza, you are AMAZING for letting us do this.  Tyler, you are awesome for letting us use that bass!  Thanks to everyone who put the word out: BeatleNews.com, San Diego City Beat, the Walrus, SDReader.com and especially SignOnSanDiego!

We might just have to make this an annual event.

SETLIST:
I've Got A Feeling/Why Don't We Do It In The Road
Don't Let Me Down
One After 909 (Backbeat not Grateful Dead style)
Dig A Pony (Laura Jane singing)
Get Back In The USSR
I Want You (She's So Heavy)
Bad Boy (for everyone who ditched work)
Across The Universe (Family Cat style)
Don't Let It Be In Anger (Fauxasis mashup)
(why not do a few songs more than once like the Beatles did for the late folks?)
I've Got A Feeling/Why Don't We Do It In The Road
Don't Let Me Down
Get Back In The USSR


COVER ME BADD'S BEATLES U.S. PERFORMS DOWNTOWN FOR THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BEATLES' LEGENDARY ROOFTOP SHOW
SECRET LOCATION: maybe Westfield's Horton Plaza at Broadway Circle, downtown San Diego
SECRET DATE: probably 40 years after January 30, 1969
SECRET STARTING TIMES: rhymes with "moon" (plus 8pm for those who won’t ditch work)
SECRET REASON WHY: Because when someone breaks into your friends’ rehearsal space and steals thousands of dollars worth of equipment, you learn Beatles songs and take to the skies.

This Friday, forty years later to the minute (minus the eight hour time difference), San Diego legends Cover Me Badd are bringing back their famed Beatles U.S. act to celebrate the anniversary of the Beatles' last semi-public performance. In the spirit of the Fab Four playing a rooftop lunchtime set to an unsuspecting London, the Beatles U.S. will play the same songs that John, Paul, George, Ringo and organist Billy Preston played on January 30, 1969. Though the exact time and location is being kept under wraps, several clues were divulged at a recent secret press conference that no one was invited to. According to singer Adam Gimbel, "People should head to Horton Plaza and be sure to bring their ice skates. When they see that the ice skating rink has been taken down for the season and look skyward in disappointment, they might just see us." When questioned about what time the set will take place, Gimbel inexplicably yelled out the name of Herman's Hermits singer Peter Noone exactly twelve times. He then bragged about how the Beatles never did encores but they might be doing one at 8pm.

The everchanging Cover Me Badd formed The Beatles U.S. two years ago for a Beatlesque installment of the Tribute! concert series at Safari Sam's in Los Angeles. Though the show was barely attended, two videos from the band's set ended up on Youtube and have been viewed over 35,000 times. Two of the group's main members, Adam Gimbel and Dylan Martinez are no strangers to having thousands of people watch them play the Beatles online. Their "real" band Rookie Card played "Back In The USSR" outside of their album release show several years ago just as a plane flew overhead in a bit of incredible timing. A video of the performance (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TJIrHKkkEw) was mentioned in a San Diego Reader coverstory and has become the stuff of legend. The group vowed to reform when the time was right and the time was right several months ago when they insisted on playing the first event on the roof of the newly re-opened 10th Avenue Theater in San Diego's East Village. Noticing that the 40th anniversary was just a few months away, they vowed to find somewhere right downtown to play on January 30th.

Gimbel inquired with almost every building that has a roof in downtown San Diego about hosting the event but they all had either tented for winter, had never heard of McCartney's pre-Wings material or wanted $15,000. Luckily, the kind folks at Westfield's Horton Plaza stepped forward to give the band a place to play, so that they too could be part of something so historic. When the Beatles were trying to come up with a place to film their last performance for the film that eventually became Let It Be, they talked about doing it on a boat, at the Royal Albert Hall in London and even in Africa. Strangely enough, there are rumors of an outtake from the movie where John Lennon turns to Yoko Ono and mumbles something about "an MC Esher styled shopping mall that smells like cinnamon buns in San Diego....near Broadway and 3rd Street." Rather than play on a roof where no one could see them, the Beatles US decided to comply with Lennon's wishes and play somewhere a bit more retail oriented. Ever charitable, the band is playing FOR FREE while requesting donations for their friends, local soul/funk outfit The Tightenups, who recently had their rehearsal space robbed of several thousand dollars worth of equipment.

Though world-famous Beatle coverband the Bootleg Beatles played the same famous fifth story roof that the Beatles played at 3 Saville Row in London ten years ago, local council and police have cancelled this year's recreation due to "health and safety reasons". Not surprisingly, all eyes have turned towards a shopping mall in San Diego, California for the next best thing. Those seeking 100% faithful renditions, fake accents, period-perfect costuming or even an actual roof need not attend. Like all Cover Me Badd acts, the Beatles US puts more of a twist (and a shout) on things than most Beatle copycat bands.

An elevated time is guaranteed for all.