All Together Now

The music is so hallowed it's easy to forget the Beatles had a knack for the comic banter as well.

Neither Paul McCartney nor Ringo Starr allowed things to get too austere on Tuesday as they unveiled memorial portraits of the late John Lennon and George Harrison, marking the first anniversary of the Cirque du Soleil show "Love" at The Mirage.

"All I have to say is, 'Turn left at Greenland,' " McCartney said, dropping a quote from the movie "A Hard Day's Night" -- Lennon's answer to a reporter's question, "How did you find America?" -- that reminded onlookers of Lennon's low tolerance for such media gatherings.

The old spirit briefly surfaced as Starr yielded the floor to McCartney:

"Thank you, Richard."

"Call me Ringo when we're in public."

"Thank you, Richie."

When the drapes came off the two portraits, McCartney seemed surprised that they contained dot-matrix images, not words: "That's not a plaque. ... I must say I was expecting a plaque."

More poignantly, the 10-minute ceremony hosted by CNN's Larry King showed further solidarity between McCartney and Yoko Ono. The fence-mending of their long feud was noticed last year when the two embraced onstage, in full view of the opening-night audience.

"It is very sad, obviously, but moving right along, they were magnificent men," McCartney said of his former bandmates.

"Another magnificent man here introduced it," Ono said of McCartney in her remarks about the Lennon portrait.

"It's an honor for me to do this today," Starr said of unveiling Harrison's portrait. "It's not really a great pleasure because I would prefer the man was standing next to me, but this is life as we know it."

McCartney, Starr, Ono and Olivia Harrison retreated to the casino's Beatles-themed Revolution Lounge for a televised interview with King before catching the 7 p.m. performance of "Love."