WASHINGTON – About halfway through the show with his All Starr Band, Ringo Starr reached into the crowd to retrieve a sign proffered by a fan.
“I agree!” he said with a smile as he held up the white poster board that read, “Ringo for President 2024.”
It isn’t too farfetched a thought – except the pesky fact that Starr was born in Liverpool, England – given the enduring love from tens of millions around the world as well as the 3,000-plus who filled The Anthem in D.C. Tuesday.
Starr is in the midst of a fall leg of his tour with the All Starrs, which began this most recent run in May and will end Sept. 25 in New York.
His compilation tours, which began in 1989 and have continued steadily with a rotating cast of familiar names equipped with their own catalog of hits, remains a novel idea. Why not pair the iconic Beatles drummer with a crop of versatile players who want to have as much fun as he clearly does onstage?
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This current assembly offers another multitalented bunch: Colin Hay (guitar; Men at Work), Steve Lukather (guitar; Toto), Warren Ham (horns, percussion, flute; Kansas), Hamish Stuart (bass; Average White Band), Gregg Bissonette (drums; David Lee Roth) and Buck Johnson (keyboards; Aerosmith).
The 19-song, 100-minute show attracted a multigenerational crowd primed to stand and video (and stand and video some more) and sing along with Starr-fronted Beatles treasures like “Yellow Submarine” and “Octopus’s Garden," solo hits like “It Don’t Come Easy,” and “Photograph” and immediately identifiable radio classics from the band.
“Those that don’t know any of these songs … God help you,” Starr joked at the start of the concert.
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A Carl Perkins cover – rockabilly toe-tapper “Matchbox” – kicked off the show, but soon the animated Starr, who bounced out from backstage and flashed peace signs, settled in for his own track, “It Don’t Come Easy.”
A diminutive figure in rock-star-cool black pants and jacket over a T-shirt bearing – what else? – a peace sign, the 84-year-old Starr showed the benefits of his healthy lifestyle as he sway-danced onstage whenever he clasped the mic and jogged up to his drum riser in the middle of “Back Off Boogaloo” to pick up the beat with Bissonette.
Starr remained onstage for the majority of the show, only bowing out to “have a cup of tea.” Meanwhile, his ace cast showcased their versatility through a winding jam of Average White Band’s “Cut the Cake” and, with the spotlight on Bissonette, a roll call of vintage rock songs (“We Will Rock You,” “Rock and Roll” and a masterful meshing of the drum fills in “Golden Slumbers”/”Carry That Weight”/”The End” and Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher”).
As gratifying as it to witness a Beatle performing Beatles songs, what makes these All Starr Band shows so inviting is their accessibility.
Three of the night’s highlights came from the songbooks of Hay and Lukather (who played with the fierceness of a guy whose guitar is heard on more than 1,500 songs).
The witty Hay, who told a story about hearing Men at Work songs on the speakers at CVS while waiting in line for his prescriptions, led a muscular “Overkill,” accented by Ham’s elastic tenor sax notes and his own commendable victory on the song’s glorious key change.
Later in the show, a guitar-driven “Who Can It Be Now?,” that sax-filled tale of finding peace and paranoia, kept the already-risen crowd standing as they heartily yelled along.
But the reason they were already hyped was thanks to Toto’s “Africa.” The band performed an engaging rendition – again Ham amazed with his work on congas, flute and tenor sax – of a song that possesses one of the most sublime melodies of its era.
Naturally – and of course – Starr's material wrapped the show with the singsong-y “Photograph” and an anthem introduced by him saying, “If you don’t know this next song, you’re in the wrong venue.”
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“With a Little Help From My Friends,” performed in front of giant yellow flowers dancing on the screen behind the stage, extracted the expected vocalizing from the crowd. But most endearing was seeing the band look as if it was having as much fun playing this sweet chestnut as the fans singing its message of togetherness.