On a recent evening, the performance space in the back of Eugene’s Tsunami Books was full of people singing along to the Beatles.
It’s standing room only for the Beatles sing-a-long.
It’s a project by Paul Safar, a Eugene musician, composer and teacher.
At the beginning of the evening, he’s dressed in a blue British-style military jacket like the one Paul McCartney wears on the cover of the Beatles’ iconic Sgt. Pepper’s album.
He said the sing-a-long stemmed out of a pandemic project.
“Like many musicians, I did sort of regular, piano recitals, concerts, live-streamed from my piano studio,” Safar said. “In which I would play classical music, and I’d play some original piano pieces and I’d maybe have a theme of something or other.”
He said the streamed concerts evolved to include a sing-a-long portion– often to a Beatles song. It felt like a way to connect. And now, the in-person sing-a-longs serve a similar purpose and feed a need for community.
“The whole feeling of singing together in one voice is absolutely special and lovely, whether it’s a formal choir or informal like this,” he said. “And I think especially since the pandemic we’ve been craving togetherness and live music.”
And then, there’s the Beatles…Safar said it’s a large catalog of music that many generations seem to know and love.
“They’re poetic. They’re fun. They’re peace-loving, many of them. Beautiful lyrics,” he said. “And it’s fun to see the different generations get attracted to the music.”
On stage Safar sings and plays piano and guitar. He was joined by cellist Sophie Phillips-Meadow and Sandy Holder on vocals, accordion, and guitar.
The audience included a lot of folks who grew up listening to the Beatles, like Denise and Louise.
“What I'm most excited about tonight is, the songs that I grew up with and loved and, oddly enough, I don't sing them that much anymore, so now I'm excited to just sing,” said Denise.
“Well, I grew up listening to the Beatles too, and I just love them. I just love all their songs and it's something that really knit our generation together, you know, it's something that we all have so it kind of brings up good memories for me and sort of a touchstone of, you know, places for people to come together and you know, in these times I think that's really important,” her friend Louise added.
The Beatles Sing-a-long usually happens once a year on the first Thursday in January.
This one is timed to be part of the Eugene Concert Choir’s Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Oratorio concert this month.
