You can’t move in a provincial theatre these days without stumbling upon a gaggle of tribute bands. and there aren’t many successful bands without their own imitators –and sometimes a whole clutch. We have Oasish, Proxy Music, The Faux Fighters, Fake That, The Fillers, nearly Dan and The Rolling Clones– But the one that started it all off is a tribute to the greatest band of all time.

The Bootleg Beatles are still the finest tribute on the scene, so it should not have been a surprise to see them packing out the New Theatre on a Sunday night for a superlative night of Beatlemania.

The show followed the lads from mop-topped rock & rollers through the suited Rubber Soul era, the flower power Sergeant Pepper phase and on to the White Album – the 50th anniversary of which is being celebrated this year.

Kicking off with Please Please Me, we hurtled through All My Loving and She Loves You, on to Drive My Car, Day Tripper, Norwegian Wood and Taxman. What shone through was not just the remarkable versatility and consistent quality of the originals but the respect the Bootlegs have for the material in their note-perfect reproductions, costume changes and even banter.

We sang along to Yellow Submarine, Got to Get You Into My Life and Magical Mystery Tour, before things got psychedelic for I Am the Walrus. There was Penny Lane, the ‘ A side’ Strawberry Fields Forever, and All You Need is Love – with perfect reproductions of their mind-bending ‘outros’.

The second half was a wonderfully self-indulgent amble through the White Album, with Back in the USSR, Dear Prudence and While My Guitar Gently Weeps as high points.

A gig highpoint was not a Lennon & McCartney song at all, but a George number – Something, from Abbey Road. It all ended in a rousing Hey Jude– with an encore for Birthday and Twist & Shout.

We wanted more, but so prolific were the Fab Four during their eight years, we’d have been there for a week. The ultimate tribute to the greatest band of all time.

TIM HUGHES 5/5