Richmond rockers Prabir & The Substitutes are known for having more than a dollop of melodic Beatles influence in their shake, rattle and roll. Having toured steadily in recent years building regional fanbases for their hyperactive live shows, the three-year-old group was approached by bookers from the legendary 9:30 Club in D.C. with an odd proposition. Would they open for a Beatles tribute band, The Silver Beats, from Tokyo, Japan?
“We definitely take a lot of influence from ‘60s harmony fueled music like The Beatles and The Zombies,” says Prabir Mehta, 28, the lead singer/guitarist for the group who moved to America from Gujarat, India when he was nine. “I didn’t know anything about The Silver Beats, but I did my research the next day and realized it was going to be the weirdest gig in the world.”
To Mehta’s surprise, the show sold out.
“It was great. They look and sound eerily identical to the real thing,” Mehta says. “They also do the entire catalogue. You haven’t really heard the Beatles until you’ve felt that bass thumping in your chest in a live venue.”
When the Silver Beats planned an upcoming gig in Richmond at Toad’s Place, they remembered Prabir & The Substitutes and asked them to open again. Mehta, in turn, asked if they could join The Silver Beats in Nashville, another town the Substitutes have done well in. “They said, why don’t you just do the whole tour with us,” Mehta recalls.
And so it began: a tour straight out of a Tarantino flick that is featuring a nice contrast between Beatles influence and a full-on Beatles worship, complete with four Japanese guys who don’t speak much English but have phonetically learned to emulate every syllable and gesture of the famed Fab Four.
Mehta is a former member of local group The Rachel Nevadans, and he says that B.B. King was the reason that he began playing guitar. His new band has released three albums so far. But just how did the name The Substitutes come about?
"I was talking to my old bandmates and told them after we broke up that I'd just have to find some substitutes for them ... the name just kind of stuck."
During this tour, Mehta will be even more busy than usual on the road. He will be providing images, video clips, and a tour diary from Prabir & The Substitutes to be featured on the website Brightest Young Things.com.
Prabir & The Substitutes perform on July 25 at Toad’s Place with Hoots and Hellmouth and The Old Ceremony. They open for the Japanese Beatles cover band, The Silver Beats, at Toad’s on August 10. Pre-show day tickets are $10 and $12, respectively.
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