Beatles night for Nitoy

Recent years have not been kind to musicians, particularly guitarists who have passed on one after another since the pandemic: Wally Gonzales, Noli Aurillo, Jun Lopito, Rolly Maligad, not to mention drummer Chong Tengansantos, singer Hajji Alejandro, and the songwriters Heber Bartolome and Freddie Aguilar.

- JUANIYO ARCELLANA

They join a pantheon of greats up in the sky or wherever Elysian fields your faith believes takes them, singing their last notes that, however, as the song goes, do not fade away.

So it was with some trepidation that local musicians heard the news that veteran session guitarist Nitoy Adriano, formerly of the Jerks and lately with Oktaves and Kosmikskala, needed a medical procedure on an enlarged prostate that required funds for surgery. Enter the musicians community, most of whom have shared the stage with Nitoy in various gigs, to come up with some benefit concerts mainly in 70s Bistro along Anonas Ave. to help defray expenses.

Beatles Night on the first Friday of July was one such event, and it turned out to be a reunion of sorts among boomers down to succeeding generations X and millennial, singing along to tunes of the Fab Four heard in an altogether different light.

Renditions were not fanciful, yet carefully transposed to the local setting, still keeping the range of the original Beatles composition.