Ringo Starr Rocks N.Y.C.’s Radio City With A Little Help From His Friends

As he approaches 85 next month, Ringo Starr remains spry on the mic and the drums when he and his All Starr Band performed a sold-out date at New York’s Radio City Music Hall on Friday evening. It was a positive sign given that the former Beatle had to cancel the last two showas of his summer tour last year, including a date in the Big Apple, due to illness.

The Radio City show more than certainly made up for that cancellation as he and the band — guitarist/singer Steve Lukather (Toto), bassist/singer Hamish Stuart (Average White Band), guitarist/singer Colin Hay (Men at Work), woodwinds player/multi-instrumentalist Warren Ham, drummer Gregg Bissonette and keyboardist Buck Johnson — played a set of Starr’s solo material and Beatles songs that featured him on lead vocals.

The concert kicked off with a rollicking cover of Carl Perkins’ rockabilly classic Honey Don’t (which the Fab Four covered on 1964’s Beatles for Sale). From there, Starr alternated between standing in front of the stage with a mic in his hand and playing behind his drum kit as he ran through other beloved Beatles classics: “Yellow Submarine,” “Boys,” “Octopus’s Garden,” “I Wanna Be Your Man,” and a cover of Buck Owens’ “Act Naturally.”

Additionally, Starr unveiled his popularly known solo songs such as “It Don’t Come Easy,” “I’m the Greatest,” “No No Song” and the sublime “Photograph,” which he co-wrote with his former Beatles’ bandmate George Harrison. He also performed his recent single “Look Up” from the country album (produced by T Bone Burnett) of the same name released earlier this year.

It wasn’t just Starr in the spotlight that evening; the other members of his band also got to shine by performing a few of their best-known hits—Lukather with Toto’s “Rosanna,” “Africa” and “Hold the Line”; Hay’s popular songs with Men at Work, including “Who Can It Be Now,” “Down Under” and “Overkill”; and Stuart with the Average White Band’s funky oeuvre of” Pick Up the Pieces” and “Cut the Cake.”

The humorous moment from the concert was when Starr jokingly considered performing Beatles songs that he had not sung lead on as Lukather played riffs of some of those numbers, before the legendary drummer wisely decided not to tackle those.

Naturally, the penultimate moment of the show was Starr’s performance of one of his signature Beatles songs, “With a Little Help From My Friends,” off of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. As Starr walked off the stage and said goodbye, the rest of the band appropriately launched into John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band’s “Give Peace a Chance” since Starr’s lifelong mantra has always been “peace and love.”

Starr’s band lived up to their moniker as all the musicians were in fine form that night with their performances, from Lukather’s blazing riffs to Bissonette’s versatile drumming (his solo spotlight quoted several popular rock songs by the likes of the Rolling Stones, Rush, and of course the Beatles). Starr was in good spirits and quite energetic, proving that the enthusiasm is still there as the beloved rocker is in the seventh decade of his music career.

The band’s spring tour continues through June 25.

Setlist

Honey Don’t

It Don’t Come Easy

Rosanna (Toto cover)

Pick Up the Pieces (Average White Band cover)

Down Under (Men at Work cover)

Boys

I’m the Greatest

Yellow Submarine

Cut the Cake (Average White Band cover)

Octopus’s Garden

Look Up

No No Song

Overkill (Men at Work cover)

Africa (Toto cover)

Work to Do (The Isley Brothers cover)

I Wanna Be Your Man

Who Can It Be Now? (Men at Work cover)

Hold the Line (Toto cover)

Photograph

Act Naturally

With a Little Help From My Friends

Give Peace a Chance