With music venues and theatres closed, a lot of us are searching for ways to listen to great music. Subscriptions to Spotify have increased and many tune into the National Theatre on Thursday evenings to watch old performances of some much loved theatre shows.
Many of you will remember my 5 star review of Buddy Holly the Musical, which played at The Alexandra Theatre Birmingham in March. It was a fantastic show and I commented on how AJ Jenks who played Buddy was brilliant and topped my favourite theatre performance ever.
So imagine my happiness when I discovered that during lockdown AJ Jenks was doing live gigs on Zoom for only £5! With the second being AJ Jenks Plays The Beatles.
With me, my husband and our two avid Beatles fans aged 4 and 7 watching the show, it was amazing value and a perfect way to spend a Saturday evening.
The show started with AJ Jenks playing his acoustic guitar and singing along to You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away. A song released in 1965 that also featured in the movie Help!
Followed by And I Love Her, which was in the 1964 film A Hard Day’s Night.
AJ Jenks introduced himself to his zoom audience and invited people to ask questions via comment and he would answer live, with the help of Joe Butcher (another talented actor and musician from Buddy The Musical).
The third song – one of Jemimas favourites, is the first song that featured a sitar in it (a quirky fact from AJ during the gig) and was Norwegian Wood from the Rubber Soul album in 1965.
We then heard another 5 songs before the interval, including Blackbird, which AJ tells us is his mums favourite song, Nowhere Man (The Beatles most underrated song according to AJ), the song originally named Scrambled Eggs before being changed to Yesterday and John Lennons favourite song In My Life.
Ending the first half with everyone up on their feet, singing and dancing along to Twist and Shout. A firm favourite of mine.
We had a 5 minute interval before AJ returned to the ‘stage’ with a full outfit and guitar change.
We’d now moved from the early 60s to the late 60s (1969 to be precise) and Don’t Let Me Down. AJ resembling John Lennon with sunglasses, a loud suit jacket and an epiphone. AJ, like Lennon, has a phenomenal vocal range and although singing in tenor, he can consistently hit notes within the baritone range whilst hitting the falsetto “pleeeease” near the songs conclusion.
We then heard some fabulous renditions of Something, Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, a medley of All You Need is Love and She Loves You and Here Comes The Sun. All wonderfully performed, demonstrating AJs phenomenal vocals and musical strengths.
Joe Butcher joined AJ on the stage to play the drums and help with harmonies to Come Together and Get Back. The two work incredibly well together and created a real buzz on the Zoom screen where we could see lots of people dancing along.
The gig finished back in the early 60s with everyone on their feet dancing and singing along to, I Saw Her Standing There.
Everyone enjoyed the show so much, that people were asking for an encore, not wanting it to end. AJ gave us a final song and it had to be one that got the Grammy Hall of Fame – Hey Jude. Much to everyone’s happiness.
It really was a superb evening. And we cannot wait to hear what AJ’s next Live Zoom performance will be. And at only £5 a ticket, you’d be a fool to miss out.
You can follow AJ Jenks on his instagram site where you will find details (when released) about upcoming performances and how to book a ticket: https://www.instagram.com/aj_jenksuk/