Japanese invasion

HERE COMES THE (LAND OF THE RISING) SUN: John Lennon (Hidemasa Mabuchi) looks on as George Harrison (Hajime Kubo) wails at the Variety Playhouse.

Japanese beetles, and apparently Japanese Beatles, thrive in America because they have no natural predators here. The Silver Beats, a Beatles tribute band from Tokyo, opened their inaugural U.S. tour in 2007 at the Fox Theatre, and they returned Wednesday to play the Variety Playhouse.

Fans sang along as the band breathed surreal new life into the dusty classics, and heckling front-row frat boys had little effect. The Beats seemed immune to any ridicule because it's hard to tell how seriously they take themselves. Covering such an iconic band is rife with pitfalls, and despite having the matching suits, shaggy bowl cuts and musical chops to carry that weight, their tongues never strayed far from their cheeks as they ripped through convincing Fab Four covers in rapid-fire succession. They stopped between songs only occasionally for some crowd-teasing banter in halting Japanese accents, and defused the hecklers with their disarming cheer and subtle sarcasm. The feisty Tadaaki Naganuma — Paul — responded to one upstart by teaching the crowd a Japanese word, which sounded a lot like "Eat us."

Photo by Joeff Davis