Meet The Sunset Four, Miami Beach’s teenage answer to the Fab Four Beatles
Seems everybody is talking the Beatles again thanks to the streaming and Blu-ray release of the new three-part Disney+ documentary “The Beatles: Get Back.”
But one of the more heartening Beatles stories of late may be the coming performance of The Sunset Four. Billed as “the world’s youngest Beatles Tribute Show,” The Sunset Four are four 13-year-old Miami Beach Nautilus Middle School students who are set to play the Fab Four’s tunes at the Sand Bar Kitchen.
The Sunset Four features Oliver Lieberman on guitars and vocals in the John Lennon role. Warren Bromley on bass in Paul McCartney mode. And sisters Zoe Lyons on lead vocals and Evangeline Lyons on drums — the instrument Ringo Starr played, naturally.
Beatles’ Deauville anniversary
The free concert, on Feb. 16, is designed to commemorate the 58th anniversary of The Beatles’ landmark performance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1964 that was broadcast from inside the Deauville hotel.
No accident. That Sand Bar location was chosen because it’s across the street from the Deauville, which, controversially, faces demolition this summer.
“It’s super upsetting that they’re taking down the Deauville. Everybody that lived in Miami Beach knows that The Deauville is the hotel where the Beatles played for the ‘Ed Sullivan Show,’” Oliver said.
“Being in a band that is inspired by the greatest musical act of all time, and having an iconic property where the act stayed, played, and partially broke through to America, yeah, this is a statement,” said Oliver’s father Brian Lieberman, who helps manage the Sunset Four’s affairs.
“Growing up as kids on Miami Beach and knowing you have a connection to the history of the property musically means something. The group feels like this show will be historic as it will be the last time Beatles music could be played on the anniversary while the hotel is still standing. Matter of fact, the first name for their tribute act was going to be The Deauvilles but they felt it would be too hard to spell for people,” Lieberman said.
Beatles music endures
The idea of the concert is gratifying, too, perhaps because it reveals what “Get Back” makes clear: The Beatles’ music has endured for 52 years after the group’s breakup and splitting off into solo careers in 1970. The current generation appears to be cutting through all of today’s competing distractions to focus on that music in 2022.
Oliver said he discovered the Beatles’ music when he was in the second grade at North Beach Elementary. His teacher, Mrs. West, was reading a book on the Beatles to the class.
The inspiration lingered.
“So in around fourth grade, like mid-fourth grade, we decided to make the band and we have been playing ever since then,” Oliver said in a telephone interview with the Miami Herald alongside the other Sunset Four.
That name, by the way, is a combination of the Sunset Islands in Miami Beach and the Fab Four — “The Sunset Four,” Brian Lieberman said.
The Sunset Four, finalists in the 2021 Young Talent Big Dreams competition sponsored by Actors’ Playhouse and The Children’s Trust at the Miracle Theatre in Coral Gables, also like the music of the Foo Fighters, Coldplay, U2 and Amy Winehouse.
“Oliver and the Sunset Four were playing today’s pop hits like ‘We Are Young’ by fun, and ‘Valerie’ by Amy Winehouse, but it wasn’t until they played “Twist & Shout’ for the first time that I saw a change in audience participation,” Brian Lieberman said. “People really liked that song — and all knew it. That’s when we decided to start a side gig as the world’s youngest Beatles tribute show.”
Their first show four years ago was at a twins’ first birthday party hosted by one of Lieberman’s friends. An executive from Norwegian Cruise Lines who was at that family gathering would later ask The Sunset Four to play the ship’s onboard club, “The Cavern Club,” which was the name of the original club the Beatles played at in Liverpool before the worldwide 1964 breakthrough.
“COVID ruined that though,” Lieberman said.
Since forming, the young band has played to audiences as large as 1,500, with live streaming drawing 18,000 views, Lieberman said.
Juggling school and the band
But amid school, homework and sports five days a week — Oliver and Warren practice on local swim clubs and Zoe and Evangeline are teammates at Miami Beach Rowing — the Sunset Four fit in twice- or thrice-weekly band practices. And occasional gigs, like the coming performance, which will help raise money for their school, Miami Beach Nautilus Middle.
The music’s appeal helps make the grueling schedule fly by, they all say.
“I do have a lot of schoolwork but the band doesn’t feel like it’s like a job. It feels more just like something I do. I’m really passionate about the band and I love it. Me and my sister are taking exams and still practice but it doesn’t feel like add-on work. It just feels like fun,” Zoe said.
The band’s setlist
The four say they can pretty much play the Beatles’ catalog — from the early rock ‘n’ roll raveups like “Love Me Do” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand” to the latter Beatles’ period that saw more complex tunes like “Hey Jude,” Get Back” and “Don’t Bring Me Down.”
“When we play the Beatles it’s kind of a little bit of an older audience, who knows more about the Beatles,” Zoe said. “So when we play it we want them to be proud. It’s like music that makes them happy.”
Oliver says the Beatles’ musical range is part of the appeal.
“They have different genres of music, like blending. I don’t really know how to explain it but I listen to their music all the time and whenever I’m listening to music that’s like my first option.”
Zoe appreciates the breadth of the Beatles’ 1963-1970 songbook.
“I feel like with the Beatles it gave us so many songs choices because they’re all really good songs,” she said.
“A lot of the beats are actually really similar for most of the songs, so it’s a lot simpler,” Evangelina added.
That’s no offense to Ringo, by the way. He was an economical, steady drummer and generally not given to adding fills. After all, there’s only one drum solo on a Beatles recording. (On “The End” that closes the medley on side two of the Beatles’ “Abbey Road” album in 1969.)
Favorite Beatles’ song to play?
“Early Beatles,” Oliver says. “Please Please Me.” “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”
“She Loves You” is another favorite, even though the Sunset Four also chronologically sequence their sets to advance to the “Get Back” ending era of the Fab Four.
“People really love watching our heads and hair shake during the ‘woooooooo’ part,” he says of that 1964 chart-topper, “She Loves You.”
A Beatles Beach family
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For the Liebermans, the Feb. 16 Sand Bar Kitchen concert near the Deauville, which is being co-produced by the Sand Bar’s music coordinator George Coz Canler, former guitarist for The Romantics, is also a homecoming of sorts.
Leiberman’s father Edward Lieberman — Oliver’s grandfather — was at that Ed Sullivan taping in February 1964 at the Deauvillle.
“I am a fourth-generation Miami Beach guy whose father was at the original ‘Ed Sullivan Show’ at the Deauville Miami Beach on February 16, 1964,” Lieberman said. “My first introduction to the Beatles was finding a clear red record among all black vinyl which looked cool so I played it. The first thing I ever heard was the thundering intro to ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand.’”
Having granddad Ed, 67, in attendance in such proximity to where it all went down so many years ago is special to his grandson, too.
“My grandfather, when he was 8, ended up going to the ‘Ed Sullivan Show’ to watch the Beatles and he’s in Miami Beach and he still remembers it. And he always talked to me about it, how it was such a wonderful show. And like how great the Beatles are and how it changed the world. He loves watching us play all the time,” Oliver said.
“The music is the soundtrack to our lives,” Brian Lieberman said. “You can ask people of all ages if they know a Beatles song and some might say ‘no’ until you remind them of the lyrics and it comes to them, they do know. John Lennon once said he could be in a little town in the middle of nowhere and someone would be whistling “Yesterday.’”
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Meeting the Beatles
So what would the teen mop tops tell the two surviving Beatles — McCartney and Starr — should they ever meet one or both of their idols at one of their Sunset Four shows — like in Miami Beach, which is far from the middle of nowhere?
Stranger things have happened.
“I would need to be thanking them for making this music. It’s literally carried us on throughout the years and has made people super happy,” Oliver said.
“We are really happy to play your songs,” added Zoe.
If you go
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What: The Sunset Four commemorate the 58th anniversary of The Beatles’ performance on the Ed Sullivan Show from Miami Beach’s Deauville Hotel
Where: The Sand Bar Kitchen, 6752 Collins Ave., Miami Beach. The concert will also be streamed live on Facebook on The Fest for Beatles page at https://m.facebook.com/beatlesfest/
When: 8 p.m. Feb. 16
Admission: Free
This story was originally published February 4, 2022 at 2:41 PM.
