PORT ANGELES — He was just 17. You know what I mean.
And that role he played: way beyond compare.
Chris Getsla first portrayed Paul McCartney when he was but a high school student in suburban Chicago, a kid who auditioned his friends, formed a band and played a Beatles number in the school’s variety show.
“We started out playing ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand,’ ” he recalls. This was 1999, and “it was a hit with the faculty. They were all baby boomers,” and invited Getsla back for an encore. And while they couldn’t have known it at the time, those teachers sent the lad on the career path he loves to this day.
Over the past 15 years, Getsla has built BritBeat, a multimedia Beatles tribute that covers nearly 40 songs — from the Fab Four’s Liverpool days up to “Abbey Road” in 1969 — all wrapped in the history of John, Paul, George and Ringo.
Next stop is the Port Angeles High School Performing Arts Center, 304 E. Park Ave., for a Juan de Fuca Foundation for the Arts season concert — complete with “Ed Sullivan” as emcee — at 7 p.m. Saturday.
Tickets range from $10 for youngsters age 14 and younger to $15 to $35 for adults via JFFA.org, Port Book and News in Port Angeles and the Joyful Noise Music Center in Sequim.
Information can also be had by phoning the Juan de Fuca Foundation office at 360-457-5411. Remaining tickets will be sold at the venue Saturday night, where doors will open at 6:30 p.m.
“I couldn’t help but notice that this town is Beatles-crazy,” said Dan Maguire, the foundation’s executive director.
“So I started researching Beatles tribute bands. It turns out there are quite a lot of them,” as in too many to count.
Maguire researched about 10 groups, and BritBeat stood far out — “just a really big extravaganza of a production,” he said.
Besides the videos and graphics on the screen behind the band, BritBeat has someone old-fashioned: Fred Whitfield, a Seattleite, portraying Ed Sullivan of 1964.
He’s a classic, Getsla says, making jokes about the Beatles’ hair and getting the audience up and involved while the boys are changing costumes. Which they do six times over.
These mop tops are Eli Echevarria as John Lennon, Getsla as Paul, Geoff Allen as George Harrison and Dave Robinson as Ringo. They play in all the Beatles regalia: the suits like they wore in ’64, the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band uniforms, the long-haired look of “Revolution,” to name a few.
They have a fifth Beatle too: BritBeat keyboard player Rick Sladek, plus the sixth, Randy Getsla. He’s Chris Getsla’s father, and the longtime manager and sound mixer for the band.
BritBeat is about immersing its audience in that historic moment when the Beatles came to prominence, said the younger Getsla.
To begin, there are photographs of Liverpool’s Cavern Club in 1962, and then the history unfolds in song — and in a few television commercials from half a century ago.
“It’s amazing the body of work the Beatles put out,” Getsla added.
BritBeat, based in Chicago, contends with a lot of competition around the world. And that part of the business can be a drag, he acknowledged.
“The bottom line,” though, “is we’re privileged to be able to do this. We love the music as much as the fans do.
“It never gets old for us.”
