Dragon Review: The Beatles Music By Candlelight at Guildford Cathedral

Published on: 11 May, 2026
Updated on: 11 May, 2026

Celebrating the Beatles – the band on stage in the Cathedral. Picture: Caroline Earle

Review by David Reading

To an outsider, the view inside Guildford Cathedral might have appeared like some kind of spiritual renewal meeting. People were dancing in the aisles, while others were waving their smartphone flashlights in a shared atmosphere of peace and harmony.

But the event was a celebration of Beatles music, with a live band playing songs that still mesmerise people of all ages six decades after they were first performed.

“The Music of the Beatles by Candlelight” on Saturday (May 9) was billed as the ultimate Beatles tribute and for the 582 fans who bought tickets to celebrate the event, this was an attraction not to be missed.

Walking in through the door, I expected to encounter a sea of grey hair – people who became devotees back in the sixties – but clearly the Beatles are a cross-generational phenomenon.

Jane, in her early 40s, had been turned on to the Beatles by her parents, who became obsessive fans when the band released their first single in 1962. She’d brought along a friend and her two boys, in their early teens, and was grooving along just like the older members of the audience.

Max, in his 70s, said he saw the Beatles at Wembley in 1964, at the NME Poll Winners’ Concert, where the packed line-up also included the Rolling Stones, the Hollies and the Searchers. Unfortunately, he said, you couldn’t hear the Beatles that day because they were drowned out by the screams of elation coming from the girls in the front row. Max, who wore a Beatles T-shirt, said last Saturday’s event allowed the fans to fully appreciate the quality of the band’s music performed live.

“Beatles by Candlelight” featured superb professional musicians and a cast of West End Singers, who tackled more than 40 songs that were album tracks or singles back in the sixties.

In most cases, each song stuck pretty much to the original arrangement, with faultless harmonies and authentic guitar riffs. Even the sound effects were simulated as closely as possible to the originals, including that immense sustained chord at the end of A Day in the Life – said to have been created on the Sgt Pepper album by several pianos being struck simultaneously.

The candles were LED lights, presumably to avoid a fire hazard, but this didn’t spoil the atmosphere.

The first set featured some of the Beatles’ best-loved singles: notably Ticket to Ride and She Loves You. It was good, too, to hear some of the lighter album tracks, with both Blackbird and Yesterday standing out as highlights.

After the break, things moved up a gear with fast numbers such as Get Back and I Saw Her Standing getting people up and dancing in the aisles. An encore was demanded, of course, and the iconic anthem Hey Jude fitted the bill perfectly.

This was more than a nostalgic event for old folk, but a multi-age celebration of the best in British music.

The acoustics in the Cathedral, with its 22-metre high ceiling and stone surfaces, are said to offer a challenge to any performer playing amplified music, but the energy and excellence of the songs made it a night to remember.