In 1974, Mark Lapidos was a 26-year-old obsessive Beatles fan still smarting from the band’s breakup and wondering if they would ever reunite. He knew there were plenty of others like him who might want to commiserate and share stories. So, with no prior knowledge of how to run a show, he booked a New York hotel.
But it was important to him that he get the blessings of the band members themselves. John Lennon happened to be at an event in Central Park, and Lapidos was able to find out which hotel he was staying at. With no small amount of courage, he knocked on the door to Lennon’s room, was amazingly invited in, and immediately began telling the now former-Fab his plans.
Lennon’s response? “I’m all for it! I’m a Beatles fan too!”
The first Beatlefest was set to go, and Lapidos was shocked to see that 8,000 people showed up to talk Beatles, buy and sell memorabilia, and hear live performances. The New York show was off and running, and Lapidos would eventually secure the blessings of the other three Beatles. His wife Carol would also come on as co-producer.
Beatlefest (later renamed The Fest for Beatles Fans due to a request from management company Apple) would expand to other states, including three Houston cons in 1981, 1982, and 1984. The last was at the Westin Galleria Hotel, and this writer attended as a 14-year-old.
“The first Houston Fest was only the second show after John died. We were still reeling over that,” Lapidos tells the Houston Press. Forty-one years later, I’ve just returned from the Fest in Chicago this past weekend (the event’s second-longest running city) for a weekend of All Things Fab. Here are my impressions.
The Layout
Taking over much of Chicago’s Hyatt Regency O’Hare (which technically is in Rosemont), The Fest spreads out into more than a dozen Beatle-related rooms with near-continuous activity over three days.
From grand ballrooms for larger musical performances and presentations to smaller stages to areas dedicated to memorabilia dealers to a Paperback Writer Discussion Room, a video room, mini-museums, photo/art galleries, costume and trivia contests. Also an “Ashram” area (a nod to their 1968 spiritual journey to India) and even a recreation of the John and Yoko “Bed In” where attendees could pose prone among the pillows.
One of the coolest rooms featured David Rauh displaying his collection of thousands of different Beatle LP and singles covers from all over the world. In another, Paul Saltzman, who studied with the Beatles and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, showed his photographs of the trip—the only that exist of this epochal event in Beatles lore.
The Crowd
Lots of excitement from mostly sixtysomethings and up—the first- and second-generation fans. But on Saturday a surprising number of Millennials and Gen Z—and not always with their parents or grandparents—were walking around. There was good sport in everyone checking out the hundreds of different variants of Beatles T-shirts worn as people passed each other (I got a lot of thumbs up for my Badfinger shirt).
Speaking of Badfinger…
The Fest hosted the world premiere of the wonderful documentary on Badfinger’s singer/guitarist, Joey Molland: Liverpool to Memphis. A frequent Fest Guest, Molland was the last surviving member of the classic lineup before dying last March at the age of 77.
Director John Anderson and Molland’s longtime partner, Mary Joyce, were in attendance to answer questions and discuss the film. It featured archival Badfinger/Beatles footage, and more recent interviews and live renditions of tunes like “Come and Get It,” “Day After Day,” “Baby Blue” and “Without You.”
Anderson told the Houston Press he’d been working on it since 2011, and he and Joyce were thrilled to have it finally come to fruition. At times tearful, Joyce said that Molland “would have absolutely loved” the finished product, which Anderson hopes to make more available to the public in the coming year.
The Guests
The Fest always features guests with personal and professional connections to the Beatles, who also participate in book signings, interviews, and in some cases live performances.
This year included Peter Asher of Peter & Gordon (Paul McCartney also lived in his house while dating his sister, Jane). Jenny Boyd (whose sister, Pattie, was married to both George Harrison and Eric Clapton). Boyd is a writer, therapist and was also married to Mick Fleetwood and inspired Donovan’s “Jennifer Juniper.”
Also among them Apple Records executive Chris O’Dell, John Lennon’s lawyer Jay Bergen, Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty, Neil Innes’ widow Yvonne, Beatles superfan (and “Eugene” from the movie Grease) Eddie Deezen, journalist Larry Kane, and Bad Company drummer Simon Kirke, who played with Ringo Starr’s All-Star Band.
All were approachable and mingled freely with attendees. Boyd was able to tell the true story of why the Beatles suddenly left India and the teachings of Maharishi because she was actually there. It was a likely unfounded rumor about his possible, uh, more earthly behavior with female students, planted by a Lennon sycophant.
The Bands
Nearly continuous Beatle and Beatle-related music could be heard live on multiple stages from acts ranging from solo acoustic performers to full rock bands (chief among them Fest favorite Liverpool, who played the main concerts all three nights), and even an “all ukulele” Beatles jam. Not to mention a section of the lobby that became a space for a come-and-go free form jam. And only at a Beatles Fest would you find a sitar player in the front lobby.
But the band that impressed me most—and were clearly the most fun to watch—were Milwaukee’s The Taxmen. Made up of four friends in their early/mid 20s, their spirit, joy and energy simply crackled in two shows covering both Beatles and solo material. A guest horn section added punch to tunes like “Live and Let Die,” and even slight alternations to some songs like “Eleanor Rigby” were fresh and inventive.
Their second show on the smaller “Apple Jam Stage” was so filled that every seat was taken by a rear, every wall space by a back, and the crowd spilled out well into the hall. Some more astute folks caught the show from the rail on the floor above. The band includes multi-instrumentalist/singers Will Maher, Anthony Kopczynski, Jeffrey Dziadulewicz, and Will Martin.
The Last DJ
Other than Lapidos, the most frequently-seen person at the Fest dashing to and fro had to be Tom Frangione. A host of multiple programs on SiriusXM’s Beatles Channel, he was in constant motion doing stage interviews with guests, hosting “Name That Tune” contests, and hosting auctions.
Asked why there were no regular national conventions for fans of, say Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, U2, or even Elvis—much less two a year—he told the Houston Press the answer is simple.
“The easy answer is the music, but the legacy has been worked really well. They won a Grammy last year. Not for best historical recording or reissue, for Best Rock Performance for a track that came out of the vaults [“Now & Then”]! They remain very relevant,” he offers, adding that even rumors of any new projects generate a lot of interest.
“And This has been handed down. I get lots of calls on the Fab Fourum and they’re kids. They’re third and maybe fourth generations fans who got records from their older brother or whose parents listen in the car. But it’s sadly a finite body of work. And John only lived 10 years after the Beatles broke up and of that, only worked for five.”
Frangione was also the envy of many a Beatles fan when he recently got some serious face time with both Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr for radio specials on the solo record Tug of War and Ringo’s All-Starr Band history respectively.
He may have even corrected McCartney on his own work, when he told Macca that he played drums on one track.
“He told me ‘No, I thought that was Stevie Wonder.’ I didn’t say ‘You’re wrong that’s not what the liner notes said.’ But as we talked more he said ‘That could have been me.’ Then by the end, it was ‘That probably was me!’”
And In the End…
All in all, it was a wonderful experience for a Certified Beatlemaniac like this writer, who even did his Spring High School independent study project on the group and who wore a black armband to Duett Middle School the day after news broke that John Lennon was murdered (yeah, it was dramatic). My main goal was to add titles to my 160+ collection of Beatles books purchased from the dealer’s room, and I found plenty to fill the on-purpose-extra space in my suitcase to bring back to Houston.
The Beatles have always been and still are my favorite musical act of all time. But because their music has been so ubiquitous in my life, at times it has grown almost too familiar, or—to be utterly honest—sometimes…staid. But these two days at the Fest have absolutely reignited my fan fire. And I’m already now looking at songs I’ve heard hundreds of times with a wholly fresh perspective.
But I’ll leave the final word to Mark Lapidos, who has spent the better part of the last five-plus decades of his life in Beatles World, to explain just why we still love John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr and the music they created together.
“The Beatles are the greatest musical thing of the century, and its now spanned generations,” he sums up. “Their canon of music is the gold standard, and there’s not even a silver standard. Every one of their songs is a winner, none of them sound the same, and they always experimented. I just love them.”
For more on The Fest for Beatles Fans, visit TheFestForBeatlesFans.com
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
