Beatles Tribute Crowds Central Library Rooftop
By Rachel Rascoe, January 31, 2019, 11:35am, Earache!
As if Sir Paul McCartney’s massive ACL Fest 2018 sing-along needed any follow-up, Wednesday’s noontime performance by the Eggmen atop the roof garden of the Austin Central Library brought an at-capacity point home: Locals love the Beatles.
Widespread affection for the city’s go-to mop top cover band, as well as the crowning of the Downtown library at 710 W. Cesar Chavez, drew hundreds of Beatlemaniacs young and old. With the support of KOOP, which broadcast the show live, the Eggmen paid tribute to the legendary Apple Corps-topping concert exactly 50 years after the fact.
The 11-time Austin Music Award-winning group jammed before a panoramic city view. Famously recorded for 1970 doc Let It Be, which prompted the announcement Wednesday that The Lord of the Rings maven Peter Jackson would piece together 55 hours' worth of audiovisual material from the same sessions for a new film, “Get Back” launched the original set list locally. Like the original footage from London’s crowded streets, the Eggmen caused a pleasant ruckus in the library, their Sixties rhythms echoing down the building’s large, open stairwell.
Fans lined up to enter the terrace, while other walkers and lunchgoers gathered down below, their faces turned up to the sky. The library accommodated more onlookers with a live video feed on the lower floors. Given the on-point hubbub, the Eggmen’s status as a fivepiece Fab Four re-creation finally matched its historical status.
After another rendition of “Get Back,” Eggmen ringers dressed as British police officers infiltrated the scene. “This is a library,” one faux copper improvised. “We’ve had many complaints from the people trying to work Downtown. You’re a bunch of young people making a ruckus up here on the roof!” Unlike 1969, the band pressed on with an assortment of beloved classics to max out the hourlong event.
The Eggmen broke from Liverpudlian accents to reminisce on the changing Austin landscape in view. After pointing out the lost shadows of Liberty Lunch and Armadillo World Headquarters, and the waterside tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan, they closed the festivities with “Come Together.”
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