A taste of Beatlemania at packed Stamford screening
It was a mob scene at our Hearst Movie & A Martini recent screening of the Ron Howard Beatles documentary “Eight Days a Week” at the Avon Theatre in Stamford.
Perhaps it was not the Beatlemania madness of 50 years ago, but the film about the early touring days of the four “mop tops” from Liverpool filled the 271-seat venue. We joined forces with the nonprofit theater’s regular monthly Documentary Night to celebrate the preview of a movie that takes a new angle on the quintessential 1960s rock group — focusing on the live performances during the first half of the decade, when the Beatles’ music was taking off all over the globe.
Produced and directed by Howard in collaboration with the Hulu streaming service, “Eight Days a Week” features newly restored concert footage with the soundtracks cleaned up digitally so that the live performances are more powerful than ever. For many years, the inferior sound mixing of the concert footage allowed the screams of thousands of fans to overpower the songs the Fab Four was playing on stage.
As a result of the digital restoration of the music, tunes such as “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “A Hard Day’s Night” and “She Loves You” sound incredibly fresh — even the younger members of the Stamford audience broke into applause from time to time.
For older folks, “Eight Days a Week” reaffirms the quality of the music of their youth and serves as a reminder of the huge cultural shift that the Beatles represented, knocking older artists like Doris Day and Johnny Mathis off the pop charts and opening the door to the Rolling Stones and all of the other rock bands during the so-called “British invasion” of the mid-’60s.
By: Joe Meyers
Source: Darien News
