Geeks and dolls

Darn, I wish I’d kept my 1964 set of official Beatles dolls.

I can still remember the cardboard box they came in marked with “Fragile” in green letters. A set of four was $3.77 at Woolworth’s. Each lad was a smidge over 4 inches tall with a full autograph on his musical instrument. They even had “real Beatle hair with lifelike expressions,” according to an old advertisement I found online.

Owning a complete set of these meant you were the coolest kid on the block.

Sadly, somewhere along the road from adolescence to puberty, I lost the Paul McCartney doll, meaning my neighborhood coolness level dropped exactly 25%. I still blame Kimmy Pillar for Sir Paul’s disappearance. She always took my stuff.

Fast-forward 56 years later, and those bad boys are selling for $399 on eBay.

Talk about return on investment!

Granted, I never imagined blogging about the Fab Four while vacationing on Anna Maria Island. Stay with me here. There’s a method to my madness.

Our first Saturday night in town, we saw four guys in black pants, white button-down short-sleeved shirts and dark skinny ties perform at a Bradenton Beach bar on the island.

Known as The Glass Onion Band, they’re a Beatles tribute group and southwest Florida’s premier cover band “dedicated to faithfully reproducing the songs of the lads from Liverpool.”

I swear, they looked more like four guys from Best Buy’s computer Geek Squad. But man, could they play.

Glass Onion has been together since 2008 playing all of those great Beatles tunes we know and love. With impressive sound and lighting, they bring the music of the Beatles to life. Musical director “Rockin’” Robin Skinner sings most of the group’s vocals with Fred Rios on bass, Steve Markovic on lead guitar and Johnny McMillan on drums.

According to their website, they use many of the same brands of instruments and amplifiers to get that classic Beatles sound, including Rickenbacker, Gibson and Epiphone guitars, Hofner bass and Vox amps.

Their name comes from The Beatles’ 1968 song “Glass Onion” on their masterpiece “White Album.” If you’re a fan of a certain age, you likely know the lyrics by heart:

 “I told you about strawberry fields
 You know the place where nothing is real
 Well here's another place you can go
 Where everything flows.
 Looking through the bent-backed tulips
 To see how the other half live
 Looking through a glass onion.
 I told you about the walrus and me, man
 You know we're as close as can be, man
 Well here's another clue for you all
 The walrus was Paul.”

In case you’re wondering, a glass onion is a coffin with a see-through lid. Honestly, I googled it.

Rumor had it that John Lennon embraced his cheeky side writing “Glass Onion,” using meaningless lyrics to confuse fans who often read too much into his songs. Apparently, he actually got a kick out of people trying to analyze his lyrics.

Not sure how McCartney felt when the song became such a big part of the “Paul is dead” hoax. (Look it up. The beach is calling me.)

So back to the tribute band.

The standing-room-only crowd loved these guys. You could feel the energy, even on a chilly February night with tall propane heaters perfectly placed inside the open-air bar. People from all walks of life sang and danced and danced some more. They knew the words and didn’t care if what they were belting out was from 50 years ago. And they were smiling. Beaming, really.

“This is when music was the real deal,” said a middle-aged bald guy from Michigan between “All My Lovin’” and “Yellow Submarine.”

“It was definitely a simpler time,” said a tanned woman from Illinois in her 70s dancing by herself to “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.”

“Good beats and easy to dance to – that’s what it’s about,” said another 60-ish Floridian who knew every word to “Revolution.”

Remember the popular Rate-a-Record game on ABC’s “American Bandstand” hosted by the late Dick Clark? The host would ask a boy and girl from the audience to listen to Top 40 hits and then grade them on a scale of 35 to 98. Right on cue, one of the kids would say, “It’s got a good beat, and you can dance to it.”

For those of you unfamiliar with this iconic music, performance and dance TV program, let me break it down in 2020 terms: “American Bandstand” was better than “The Voice,” “American Idol” and “The Masked Singer” combined. Hands down.

The dancers were better on “Soul Train.”

But don’t forget – I’m from Motown.