01:00 AM EST on Thursday, February 16, 2006

The Beatles broke up in 1970. Their last official live concert was in 1966. One of them has been dead for 25 years, another for three. One of them just tried to share a stage at the Grammys with Jay-Z and Linkin Park. And one of them is -- well, Ringo.

Doesn't matter. The image of the four mop-tops on stage, and the musical and personal changes they went through from hitting it big in 1964 to breaking up in 1970, is as strong as ever among those of a certain age. And that age doesn't have to be old enough to have seen them the first time around. The Beatles formed the basic template for a rock 'n' roll band, and there's more than one band out there paying tribute to the music and the image formed all those years ago.

BeatleMania Live is such a group, and in separate interviews two members have some differing opinions on the gig, but they both agree that the music is more than worth keeping alive.

"The songs are great all the way through," says Mac Ruffing, who portrays Paul McCartney. "You can't beat the music . . . [It's] still standing up 40 years later."

"If you've got to play somebody's music," says Stephen Bard, who plays John Lennon, "this is good music to play. There's a lot to it, a lot of range."

THE SHOW IS divided into three segments -- "three halves, if you will," Bard says. The first "half" is played in mop-top wigs and suits, stretches into 1965 and gets as far as the Rubber Soul album. The second segment covers the group's psychedelic period, including especially the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. The third covers the White Album, Abbey Road and Let It Be -- "it loosens up and gets kind of freaky," Bard says.

The stage act includes in-character stage patter from the four players, about half drawn from Beatles concert footage and half improvised, Bard says. "If you just stood there and played the songs, you'd be losing part of the charm of what the Beatles were about."

The setup requires some historical conflation -- songs from Revolver in the Sgt. Pepper segment, for example -- but it's necessary given the Beatles' wide-ranging oeuvre: "Every album was an era," Bard says.

". . . There are some Beatle bands out there who play only what the Beatles played [live], to be purists. They don't play anything after 1966."

Ruffing prefers the early era. "It was the era that made them famous in America. . . . Love songs, more danceable."

In terms of his own musical challenges, Bard likes the middle period, including "Strawberry Fields Forever," where he gets to play guitar and keyboards and sing, all at the same time. But the early period has a more visceral appeal for him. "When the four of us are in our suits and we're rocking . . . that's just insane, and we're really together on that. I think that's where the band is tightest."

BEFORE JOINING BeatleMania, Bard spent four years portraying bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones in the Led Zeppelin tribute band Physical Graffiti, as well as playing his own music as a solo guitar-piano act.

Being in BeatleMania is "a little more fun," says Bard, who has been in BeatleMania Live for eight years. "But John Paul Jones was fun too, and that was a real fun four years. We went all over the place, and it was pretty rock 'n' roll."

Ruffing has been in the band for 13 years. It's not his first Beatle tribute band, either. He's also played in original-music bands, referring to it as "trying to make it big, and it was a big hassle."

In another Beatle band, Ruffing had to learn to play bass left-handed in order to portray McCartney. "At first, I thought, 'What the hell am I doing?' " But after about six months he got the hang of it and says he hardly ever plays right-handed anymore.

Bard says that when you're portraying a group as beloved as the Beatles on stage, you'd better get it right.

"Beatle fans are an interesting group of people," he says. ". . . The Beatles are surrounded by trivia -- all the details of their performances and their recordings and where they were and what they did, who said what and who sang what and who wrote what and who played what, and they're crazy about the guitars."

Bard says that fans will come up to the group's George Harrison and ask minute details about guitars, strings, amplifiers and more.

"The minutiae of it is infinite and insane," Bard says. "We know as much about it as any normal people. I mean, there are different degrees of fandom, and I think we're right on the edge between reality and absurdity in our fandom. And there are people who are further out than we are, but we're pretty far out.

"You have to be pretty far out to do this for a living, year in and year out. . . . There are varying degrees of cult-ness. And that's why we still work."

OBVIOUSLY, CLASSICAL AND many jazz musicians play other people's music all the time, but in the personality-driven world of rock, is it weird to spend your life portraying a particular person, and playing their music?

"Not really," Ruffing says. "There were times once in a while, when I'd look back and think about what I'm doing and say, 'Why am I doing this?' and so forth. But there's other people doing it, you can't beat the music, and the main reason is the real Beatles are no longer."

Bard's feelings are a little more mixed.

"It's a constant struggle for me personally, because it's such a huge role. [Lennon is] such an icon, and he's such a giant of a person in cultural 20th-century history, and there are times when I feel dwarfed by it, and not worthy of it.

"And then there are times when I just have fun doing it. He's my hero, and I get to pretend I'm him . . . every night is Halloween. But I go back and forth. Sometimes I feel like . . . 'Who am I to presume that I can pull it off?' . . .

"And I have musical aspirations of my own -- I was a songwriter before I got into this band, and you've got to kind of push that aside to do the role. So like everything, it's got its pros and cons."

Ultimately, though, he's kept at it for eight years, and that says something right there.

"It's fun. Everybody loves it; everybody has a great time. And those are the things I try to concentrate on. The most important thing is that the audience has a great time.

"I can see the faces, and when I see the faces of the people smiling, no matter who old they are, they have a youthful light that comes upon them. Because when you see something that you love so much, and it looks kind of like it and it sounds kind of like it, you say, 'Wow!'

"I mean, that's happened to me -- I've seen things that made me feel young, and I think that's what people like -- to feel young."

BeatleMania Live is at the Providence Performing Arts Center, 220 Weybosset St., Providence, tomorrow night at 8. Tickets are $26 to $38; call (401) 421-2787 or go to www.ppacri.org.

Beatle revue

More Beatle-related stuff this weekend: There's a Beatle revue and silent auction of memorabilia at the Hyatt Regency on Goat Island in Newport at 9 p.m. Saturday. It's part of Newport's Winter Festival; tickets are $20, or $15 with button at door or in advance. Call (401) 847-7666 or go to www.newportwinterfestival.com.

And the Third Annual Tribute to George Harrison goes off at 4 p.m. Sunday at the Waterstreet Cafe in Fall River, with a night full of '60s music in general and Harrison tunes in particular, all to benefit the American Cancer Society chapter of Brockton, Mass. It's at 36 Water St., Fall River, and tickets are $10. Call (508) 672-8748.

Texas in Boston

It's Carnaval time, and the same people who put on the huge celebration in Austin, Texas, are trying their hand at Boston on Saturday night. New York's Grupo Saveiro, who've done the do in Rio itself, are the headliners along with singer-rapper Davi Vieira. Looks like the real deal.

It's at the Boston Castle at Park Plaza, Columbus Avenue at Arlington Street, Saturday night starting at 9. Tickets are $44 in advance and $49 at the door; call (800) 965-4827 or go to www.CarnavalBoston.com.