Chris LeGrand in "Beatles vs. Stones: A Musical Showdown"

By Anne Halliwell

September 16, 2020 at 7:10 AM

UPDATE 8 A.M. THURSDAY, SEPT. 17: The show has been postponed because of the pandemic.

The new date is Sunday, April 18, 2021, at 7 p.m.

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Related: Beatles vs. Stones postponed until 2021
You can’t always get what you want, but all you need is love.

And despite the sometimes-contentious history between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones — the two biggest musical imports during the British Invasion — behind the scenes of “ Beatles vs. Stones: A Musical Showdown ,” it’s all love, the musicians say.

The show pits Stones tribute band Satisfaction against Beatles act Abbey Road in a series of performances by era: Ed Sullivan vs. early Stones, Sgt. Pepper and “Gimme Shelter,” etc.

Axel Clarke in "Beatles vs. Stones: A Musical Showdown"

Each band does three 20-minutes sets, allowing them to represent a wide variety of musical styles and albums, said Axel Clarke, Abbey Road’s "Ringo Starr."

Throughout the show, audience members will likely conclude that the musical acts can and should coexist peacefully.

“We’re not taking a vote at the end of the show, it’s not an election process,” said Chris LeGrand, the show’s "Mick Jagger." “It’s more of a celebration. … More than it is something like an ‘American Idol’ or a Battle of the Bands thing."

Even between sets, audience members will see the bands embody entirely new stage personas and sounds — six in total.

“There’s a tip of the hat to the history of those eras and the nostalgia of it,” LeGrand said. “That’s what the show is all about.”

“I’m a Beatles fan, I grew up on them — my dad was more of a Beatles guy than a Stones guy, and that was just what was played around the house,” Clarke said. “But as any fan of music, I have tremendous respect for the Stones.”

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While there’s “no doubt the Stones borrowed ideas” now and then, Clarke said the Beatles likely took inspiration from their fellow Brits as well. And the image the general public has of each group is more complicated than it seems, too.

“The whole idea that the Stones were the bad boys and the Beatles were the clean-cut goody-goodies wasn’t accurate either,” Clarke said. “The Stones were all middle-class art-school boys, and the Beatles were the rough, blue-collar working guys from an industrial town.”

Listeners should be excited for the surprise joint finale, when the bands will “make history,” LeGrand said.

Whichever side listeners fall on, “you can’t go wrong with the two greatest bands, arguably, in the history of rock,” Clarke said.