© Copyright by Richard Forman, June 17, 2005. Used with permission.

Ringo Starr on Good Morning America, New York, June 17, 2005
by Richard Forman

I wouldn't have ordinarily played hooky from work to go into NYC for a 3-song concert, BUT, in this case, I had without giving it much thought, clicked on a link from the abbeyrd web site a couple days back, that said "first 50 people get VIP tickets," and to my shock, got an email back from GMA about it yesterday.  The "VIP tickets" amounted to being able to come into the park from a special line way up front toward the stage, as opposed to everyone else who had to file in from a longer line from the back of the park. So I got to see the show from about three "rows" of standing-up people back, right at the center of the stage.  Perfect!  I borrowed my wife's camera (thanks, hon!) and took a whole bunch of great pictures of Ringo and the Roundheads.  We got to see their  sound check about an hour before the performance, they ran through the numbers for the TV concert (they did "Choose Love" twice, and "Photograph" and "Yellow Submarine,"  and when Ringo left the stage to go get dressed, the band played their own rendition of "Back off Boogaloo" in its entirety!)  Funny 'coz Ringo was basically in sweats for the sound check looking like he'd just gotten out of bed.  He clowned around a bit with the audience, spoke with GMA weatherman Tony Perkins I think his name was....and I spoke to my wife later, and I got to be on TV in some of the crowd shots, waving, jumping and whoo-ing, and we taped it so I'll get to go check myself out later...she even had the presence of mind to call my mom in NJ and tell her to tune me in.

What was extra fun was I got to meet some nice, friendly fellow Beatles fans, who make me look like a civilian, I mean, I thought I was a pretty big fan and everything, but some of these people are nuts, god bless 'em, seem to have been at just about every conceivable event and concert; like, where I went to three McCartney concerts in '02 and can only afford one this year, some of these people I talked to had just been to and were going to multiple shows in multiple cities, with great seats for every one, travelled to London to do the various pilgrimages, have been to every book-signing, there was Bob the Staten Island cop who was telling me about (a) meeting, talking to Paul McCartney at a Les Paul concert at the Iridium jazz club in NYC and showed us the picture he took with him; and Jane, who runs a little NY-based Beatles "meet-up" club that any city-based fans should look into and get in touch with her about, at beatles.meetup.com/15 (apparently this is part of a whole "meet up" web site that I hadn't heard of, that lets people form little clubs around their interests.)  And Steve, not sure what his deal was except he's been to millions of concerts too, and had stood in line for half-hour Paul McCartney's NYC book signing a few years back, for two days it sounded like, been 24th in line and succeeded I guess, and helped take a couple of the pics for me (he was standing up a little closer.)  So if any of you guys are reading, (they all knew about the abbeyrd web site, and maccareport.com, so I guess they might know rmb too) - hi!  Enjoyed your company and maybe I'll catch up with you all again.

Rich Forman

To view exclusive photos of Ringo Starr on Good Morning America as taken by Richard Forman (with our sincere thanks!) just click on the active numbers below...