All You Need is Ticket Sales

As a group, the Beatles visited for only one night in 1964. Yet for Beatlemaniacs seeking communion with their musical idols, the Las Vegas Strip currently requires at least four nights: one each for "Love," "Sgt. Pepper Live" featuring Cheap Trick, "B -- Beatleshow Tribute" and the latest fab forum, "Just Imagine -- The Life and Music of John Lennon."

"The message of the Beatles has always been love and positivity," says "Just Imagine" star Tim Piper, 54. "And I think the world comes to Las Vegas to put their worries behind them.

"So that's why I think the Beatles work here so well."

"Just Imagine" -- which was set to premiere Wednesday at Planet Hollywood's CHI Showroom -- is a 90-minute unauthorized show featuring 24 songs performed by Piper and a four-piece backing band. It's slated to run for 12 weeks -- with a possible extension -- before some "Peepshow" performances.

"It's just like being able to spend an intimate evening in the company of John as he reflects, musically and anecdotally, on his family and his life," says Piper, who covers both Beatles and solo Lennon ground.

"I'll even sing a Paul (McCartney) song," he says, referring to a section in which he strolls into the crowd with an acoustic guitar and takes an audience request.

"They haven't stumped me yet."

Piper -- best known in Beatles circles for portraying Lennon in the 2000 CBS-TV movie "The Linda McCartney Story" -- has fronted Beatles and Lennon stage tributes since the '80s. He still resembles the smart Beatle (circa 1972) in casual conversation over a Planet Hollywood lunch, but there is little vocal resemblance. (He grew up somewhat west of Liverpool, in Woodland Hills, Calif.)

"I understand that no one is John Lennon except John Lennon," Piper says, "but I've done a great study on him and continue to do so."

Piper moves the interview to the showroom, where he conducts a tour and discusses technical issues with his band in the footlights. Downstage, a prop bed waits for Holly Madison, who in six hours will grant a feel to the male audience member tied to its posts.

For six months ending in April, Piper performed "Just Imagine" four nights a week at the 400-seat Platinum Live club in Studio City, Calif. The CHI Showroom holds 1,300.

"Is it daunting?" Piper repeats the next question. "Absolutely, but it seems that Planet Hollywood believes in it enough that they want to give it a try."

Piper's first dream, as one might expect, was success on his own musical terms.

"You don't grow up thinking, 'I'm gonna imitate John Lennon,' " he says, as he recalls performing his own Beatlesque acoustic tunes in clubs around Los Angeles (including the famed Troubadour, from which the real Lennon was ejected for drunken behavior in 1974).

"I had a time," Piper says, "but it didn't stick."

Piper settled for teaching engineering at a Los Angeles recording school. That was before the world of Beatles tribute bands beckoned full time. Piper was invited aboard the final touring iteration of Beatlemania in 1988, followed by stints in fab foursomes called Imagine, Classical Mystery Tour and Revolution.

"I'm not complaining," Piper says. "I get to do music that I loved as a kid and get paid to travel the world and make people happy telling the tale of what we know and love."

Contact reporter Corey Levitan at clevitan@review journal.com or 702-383-0456.