By Charles Gardner, UK Correspondent
I never thought I’d end up going to a Beatles concert in my home city of Doncaster. Okay, so it was a tribute act, but it might just as well have been the real thing it was so good! Stay tuned and I’ll tell you more.
In a conversation with Jewish singing star Helen Shapiro some time ago, she recalled the occasion when the real Fab Four hit the town back in February 1963, exactly 63 years ago.
Helen, at just 16, was a pop sensation at the time, and The Beatles, believe it or not, were her support act. But it was during their overnight stay in the Yorkshire venue famous for its racecourse and railway centre that their first big hit, Please Please Me, reached No 1 in the charts.
The line-up subsequently went their separate ways — the Beatles to unsurpassed worldwide fame as a singing/songwriting band, and Helen, no less talented for sure, to the eventual discovery of something and Someone far greater than anything this world can offer.
In our earlier chat, after learning I was from Donny, Helen recalled the engaging banter she shared on the tour bus with John, Paul, George and Ringo.
Despite the parting of the ways, Helen’s career was far from over as she also hit the No 1 spot that year with Walking Back to Happiness. But the lyrics of the song were not fulfilled until August 26 1987 — over two decades later — when she found Jesus!
It was soon after her 40th birthday when she really began to ask the big questions of life. And her musical director gave her a book to read, Betrayed by Stan Telchin.
It was about a respectable member of a Jewish community who was suddenly faced with a daughter announcing that she believed Jesus was the Messiah of Israel. He duly set out to prove her wrong and ended up becoming a believer himself!
Helen began studying the many prophecies of the promised Messiah in the Jewish Bible (what Christians refer to as the Old Testament) and was astonished at how accurately they seemed to be fulfilled in Jesus (Yeshua in Hebrew). These included references to a virgin birth in Bethlehem while the description of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53 was surely a picture of the crucifixion, despite having been prophesied some 700 years earlier.
So she plucked up the courage to read the New Testament — culturally forbidden to Jews — and recalls: “Jesus rose up out of the pages to me, and I fell in love with him. He looked at people’s hearts and saw all the rubbish and yet still loved them.”
She eventually gave her life to Jesus and admitted: “The Creator and sustainer of the universe came to live in my life. I didn’t get religion. I got Jesus, and I love him.”
Back to my recent Valentine’s date at The Cast theatre in Doncaster, where I was thoroughly riveted by The Magic of the Beatles. It was an exciting evening with my wife of 25 years Linda, who didn’t know all the songs as she was too young at the time.
But I could see that she, and the rest of the packed audience, were getting into the swing of things as they raved, waved and cheered along like a bunch of swooning teenagers. Actually, there were some teens among us!
I was blown away from the first chord as She Loves You boomed through the auditorium. And as the four amiable youngsters aped the greatest band ever, I imagined what it must have been like with the real thing, and in some ways we were better off as the music wasn’t drowned out by screaming fans.
With their Liverpool accents, sense of humour and banter with the audience on top of several costume changes and two hours highlighting the entire Beatles era, it was a sizzling treat. Replicating every chord, riff and nuance to perfection with immense energy, they proved their worth 10 times over with an exhilarating show.
But while not wishing to take anything away from their performance, which was a fascinating and highly enjoyable snatch of pop history, the part played by Helen in the original Doncaster gig serves to remind us of the only thing that really lasts — and that is life with Jesus Christ.
After all, most of the Beatles’ early songs celebrated the joys of God-given romantic love — and there is no greater love than the heavenly version. Jesus said: God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting love. (John 3:16)
Yes — He loves you!
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Wow! Helen has aged extremely gracefully! A million times better than any of The Beatles. I guess we will put that down, at least partially, to a good few decades more of substance abuse from the guys.