The Beatles tribute band ‘1964’ will be performing at The Fitzgerald Performing Arts Center (also known as the Flagler Auditorium) on Friday, February 21st. Palm Coast’s largest live entertainment venue has long been one of the premiere destinations in the area for high-quality musical tribute acts, as well as some of the stars themselves, and this month they’ll be welcoming in a tribute to the most storied band in music history.
1964 is composed of four musicians each performing as one of the Beatles’ band members: Mark Benson fills John Lennon’s slot, Mac Ruffing plays as Paul McCartney, Doug Couture fills in for George Harrison, and Joseph Bologna mans the drum kit in place of Ringo Starr. Incidentally, Starr himself is slated to perform at the St. Augustine Amphitheater on June 22nd.
1964 first formed in the year 1984, just fourteen years after the Beatles’ final album ‘Let it Be’ was released. Various musicians have come and gone from the band’s roster over the years, with only Benson remaining from the original lineup over four decades ago. For many who’ve attended 1964 concerts, the experience has been the closest they could have to seeing the Fab Four live in their heyday.
“Back then, they had these little speakers that you couldn’t hear anything out of,” Benson said of the band’s modern renditions of Beatles classics. “The way concerts were amplified had to be changed. People will come up to us and say, ‘I saw the Beatles in ’64, and the only difference is I can hear you.'”
The name of the band references their meteoric rise in popularity experienced by the Beatles that year in the United States. Known as ‘Beatlemania’, the explosion in cultural impact by the band led to nineteen studio albums reaching number one on the Billboard 200, plus twenty number one hit songs. While their legacy hardly needs introduction over a half-century later, the relevance of the Beatles to modern music and culture is still unparalleled.
Tickets for 1964’s Flagler Auditorium performance later this month are already on sale through the venue’s website. The show begins at 7:00 pm, with doors opening at 6:30 pm. Ticket prices start at $54.
Chris Gollon is a Flagler County resident since 2004, as well as a staple of the local independent music scene and avid observer of Central Florida politics, arts, and recreation.
