Yellow Matter Custard - One Night In New York City

Yellow Matter Custard is the brainchild of Neal Morse and Mike Portnoy, and from the band title you can guess it is a Beatles tribute. Joining Neal Morse (keyboards, guitars, fuzz bass and vocals) and Mike Portnoy (drums and vocals) are Paul Gilbert on guitars and vocals and Matt Bissonette on bass and vocals. The double disc set contains well over 30 classic Beatle songs, but not the very well in your face well known ones such as Penny Lane and Hey Jude to name two.

At times, the sound is so near to the Beatles, and the vocals are just like John Lennon and Sir Paul McCartney. Kicking off with an intro tape with various noises and voices, leads us into the second track Magical Mystery Tour, which you can hear the big buzz from the crowd. Dear Prudence follows which sounds just like the original from The White Album.

She Said She Said is a classic harmony and is performed well here too, along with Rain. A new song, how it is stated, is Free As A Bird, which moves into Come Together and I Am The Walrus, and George Harrison gets a mention on While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

Disc two opens with Baby’s In Black, and after a few early numbers, Ticket To Ride gets aired. Again from The White Album, the classic Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey is next along with Revolution from the same album.

On the Transatlantic live DVD (see Reviews) there is a large piece of Abbey Road (as in the album, not the tarmac) so it seems this project was on the cards back then.

The last four tracks of the package are the last four from nearly everyone’s favourite Beatles album - Sgt. Pepper: these are Lovely Rita (a cracking track by the way!), Good Morning Good Morning, the reprise Sgt. Pepper, and the classic A Day In The Life, which in my opinion is the album’s highlight.

This should grab all Beatles fans, and fans of the above musicians. By the sound of the crowd, it was a great night and I hope the show comes to England one day! Fab.

Danny Mayo

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