All you need is love – and we need it more than ever.
Fortunately, stalwart central New Jersey pop-rock quartet The Wag is bringing its salute to the Fab Four, The Wag’s Beatles Spectacular, back to the stage of the historic Strand Center for the Arts in Lakewood on Saturday, March 14.
“(The Beatles’) songs, a lot of them were about love, and that is what we need in the world, no matter what time we’re in,” said The Wag bassist and singer Brian Ostering.
“Love is not just ‘be nice to everybody,’ there’s a deeper love, and that’s what The Beatles were trying to get across,” stated The Wag’s guitarist and singer, Don Lee. “There are lots of different people from all political, religious, personal differences that all love The Beatles. So, there’s a classic saying, music can bring people together. Well, if music can bring people together, maybe in different ways we can come together, too.”
The Wag’s Beatles Spectacular, in addition to the band’s core fore members, utilizes horns, strings, dancers and costume changes for all-out night at the theater. “We’re not just playing songs,” Lee said, “we’re doing a show.”
The evening even starts with an opening act – The Wag playing not as the Beatles, but as themselves, for a few songs at least.
“We try to make it flow,” said Ostering. “We start off with an original set of our music to let the audience know who we are, this is what we do normally – we’re going to take you on a little trip, play a couple of our songs and then begin with The Beatles’ early years. So that’s how we start the show off, we play a whole set of their early music, then there’s an intermission, then after the intermission we’ll do the later Beatle years.”
Attendees should expect to hear plenty of songs they know incredibly well played faithfully and with, yes, love.
“We’re pretty true to how the Beatles would do the songs, but because we’re not the Beatles, we are ourselves, we sound like ourselves, too,” said Lee. “So you’re getting the Beatles’ songs as you think you should hear them, we’re not doing these wild versions that don’t even sound like the songs like some people do, but because we are not John, Paul, George and Ringo, we’re our own people, our sound comes through too.”
The Wag’s Beatles Spectacular, doors at 6 and show at 7 p.m. Saturday, March 14 at the Strand Center for the Arts, 400 Clifton Ave., Lakewood, New Jersey. For tickets, $25 to $30, and more information, visit https://www.strand.org.
