By: Nicole Hamilton
The Cincinnati Enquirer

The Cincinnati Pops Orchestra opened its summer series at Riverbend Saturday night with four special guests - John, Paul, George, and Ringo. That is, with four guys pretending to be the Fab Four, as part of the "Classical Mystery Tour, A Tribute to the Beatles."

Associate conductor John Morris Russell led the Pops as it performed behind the four faux Beatles. Three of them - David Leon as John Lennon, Alan LeBoeuf as Paul McCartney and Tom Teeley as George Harrison - played the roles in Broadway's Beatlemania. Chris Camilleri, the evening's Ringo Starr, was a founding member of a Beatles' copy band and has been acting as Ringo since 1979. Judging from some of the audience, he was doing that before some of them were born.

Arriving on stage as the Beatles in the early days to sing songs such as "I Saw Her Standing There" and "A Hard Day's Night," LeBoeuf, in his role of Paul McCartney, assumed the role of the amiable front man. He and Leon beared the closest resemblance to their characters in appearance and singing.

They traded black fitted suits for the psychedelic jackets of the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band years for renditions of "Eleanor Rigby" and "A Day in the Life." And the Pops performed these numbers - all taken from the group's original scores - solidly.

The Beatles' evolution continued as the four returned to the stage in costumes from the Abbey Road era. Unfortunately, "I Am the Walrus" (Magical Mystery Tour, not Abbey Road) seemed rushed and sounded unbalanced. And when LeBoeuf sang "Long and Winding Road" (from Let It Be), it was as if he was on a long and winding show tour nearing its end.

Some standouts included Leon's renditions of "Come Together" and "Imagine," which he sang clad in white suit and sunglasses.

But although the trumpets sounded in "Penny Lane," and the crescendo was effective in "A Day in the Life," the faux four seemed to be simply going through the motions. There wasn't much life to their performances, at least not enough to emulate the lives of the Beatles.

Not that the audience (an almost full house and a scattering of people on the lawn) seemed to mind, especially during the encore. There were plenty of moms jumping around with their arms in the air, reliving the good ol' days of John, Paul, George and Ringo (much to their kids' amusement.) Indeed, the enthusiastic audience played its part well.

E-mail: nhamilton@enquirer.com