Subject: Fest for Beatle Fans in Chicago

Your reporter has returned from the Chicago Fest for Beatle Fans at the Hyatt O'Hare. The highlight for me was a performance by The Smithereens. They did a tribute album a few years ago called "Meet the Smithereens" and have a new album of Beatle songs called "B-Sides: The Beatles." They played the songs with straight ahead rock and roll power and sounded great. Did mostly older Beatle songs including "Hold Me Tight," "I Want to Hold Your Hand," and "Rain." They finished with "Behind Blue Eyes" by The Who which was fabulous.

The house band is a Beatles tribute group, "Liverpool" and they are very good also. They did a version of "Revolution #9" that was quite ambitious and featured a slide show.

There were other guests including Patti Boyd Harrison Clapton, Billy J. Kramer, Brett and Mark Hudson from the Hudson Brothers and various authors with Beatle books to sell. One of the more interesting authors was Jude Sutherland Kessler from Alabama who has written the first of three historical fiction novels on John Lennon, "Shoulda Been There." Her next novel will be out late next year.

The hotel is ok, but the food is not much to write home about. On Sunday morning at about 3:30 a.m. somebody pulled a fire extinguisher off the wall and shot it on to a sprinkler and the hotel had to be evacuated. Thank you drunk person.