2009 ~ Thursday, May 14, "THE GROUP "RAIN"

After spending a whole day with my granddaughter in Montevallo, I went to Huntsville to watch the group RAIN.

I registered to win tickets to see the Group Rain with one of the television stations, and I won. 

My husband and I rode to Huntsville, stopping in Madison at Thomas Pitt for a rib plate and 

Walmart's, where we bought five cases of Mountain Dews and some domes pills.

We drove to the Civic Center, parked in the parking deck, walked to the concert hall, and waited for the Rain to begin performing.

At first, I wasn't too impressed with the first half of the show, but the second half was great.

RAIN  A tribute to the Beatles VBC concert Hall Thu May 14, 2009, 7:30 P.M.

Rain dressed just like the Beatles did when they were performing.

They changed their clothes and hairstyles as the group aged while performing.

They did 30 years of Beatles-style performances, as well as the different instruments the Beatles used.

It was an older crowd, but they really got into the music by waving their phones, dancing in their seats, and just singing along. 

The performance ended by 9:30 P.M. I enjoyed the show very much and did not want it to end. 

The four women sitting in front of us were drinking beer and wine, and by the end of the show, they were feeling excellent.

One of the women had called a friend on her cell phone and was holding her phone up so friends could hear the band play. 

At one point, she misplaced her phone, but she soon found it. 

Here is some history that I copied from the Internet about the group.

February 9, 1964, was a Sunday night that would change the course of popular music, popular culture, and history forever! Millions of Americans tuned into The Ed Sullivan Show to watch a group of four mop-topped Englishmen in dark suits who called themselves The Beatles. What they witnessed was a new and exciting brand of melodic, guitar-and-harmonies-driven rock 'n' roll that was as infectious as it was original and unique. Little did the members of RAIN know that they would themselves come together in a band, forging a career that would keep them together longer than The Beatles! All this while raising the bar for professionalism and preserving the legacy of the immortal band's recorded music, performed on stage for wildly enthusiastic audiences. Spanning generations, their audience includes the vast majority of older fans who never got to see The Beatles perform live, as well as fans who were not yet born when The Beatles hit America.

The story of RAIN actually begins in the mid-1970s, when keyboardist Mark Lewis joined forces with four other local musicians who, together, formed the band originally called "Reign" and played throughout the Los Angeles/Orange County, CA area. With their mutual love for The Beatles' music, Reign was in demand to play Beatles songs and rode an enormous wave of nostalgia for the band that had broken up in 1970. Before long, they had built a strong, devoted following in and around Los Angeles. Following numerous misspellings in the media and advertising, "Reign" became RAIN (also the title of a 1966 Beatles single). A big break came for RAIN when Dick Clark hired them to record the music for the 1979 made-for-TV movie Birth of the Beatles.

Rain's intention was not just to cover Beatles songs, but also to elevate them. To do songs that The Beatles had never performed live, and do them note-for-note, just like the records. At this time, 'tribute bands' did not exist.