Ringo Gets Back to the Garden
All-Starr Band brings the hits to Bethel Woods
It’s been about 28 years since I last stepped foot on Yasgur’s Farm in White Lake, New York, the iconic location of the 1969 Woodstock Music & Art Fair.
Back then, it was still essentially a field with stages when I caught the Day in the Garden concert in August 1998 featuring Joni Mitchell, Lou Reed, Ritchie Havens and Pete Townshend.
Nearly three decades later, the old farmland is now the grounds of the state-of-the-art Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, which is celebrating its 20th year in operation in 2026. And I couldn’t think of a better concert to witness as my inaugural show than Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band, a tour that has somehow evaded me since the beloved Beatles drummer launched the project in 1989 with a band originating with a lineup that included Joe Walsh, Clarence Clemons, Nils Lofgren, Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Dr. John, Billy Preston and Jim Keltner.
For the 16th edition of the group, Ringo continues to provide premium fan service with one of his most dynamic All-Starr Band ensembles yet featuring the likes of Toto’s Steve Lukather, Men at Work’s Colin Hay, Average White Band bassist Hamish Stuart, longtime drummer Gregg Bissonette formerly of David Lee Roth’s solo group, keyboardist Buck Johnson from Aerosmith and valued utility player Warren Ham, who has been with Ringo since 2014.
This lineup has been together since 2022 with only one change when Johnson replaced Edgar Winter on keys. And that cohesion certainly showed on this night at Bethel Woods as the All-Starr Band plugged in their winning formula to deliver a good hour and 20 minutes of nonstop hits and fan favorites.
Historically, the shows feature 10–12 songs sung by Ringo Starr (including Beatles and solo hits) mixed with two or three major hits from each All-Starr band member’s respective career.
So this means that in addition to soaring renditions of such Ringo standards as “It Don’t Come Easy,” “Photograph,” “I’m The Greatest,” “Octopus’s Garden,” “Yellow Submarine,” “Act Naturally” and “With A Little Help From My Friends,” we were also treated to a litany of hits from the other guys as well.
Lukather and Ham — who also tours with Toto — led note-perfect renditions of “Rosanna,” “Africa” and “Hold The Line” that brought down the shed three times over. Meanwhile, New Wave fans reveled in Colin Hay’s portion of the show, where the band delivered three of Men at Work’s biggest singles with uplifting renditions of “Down Under,” “Who Can It Be Now?” and the brilliant overkill from MAW’s finest LP, 1983’s Cargo. Hamish, in his second tour of duty with a Beatle following his unheralded tenure in Paul McCartney’s band during the Flowers in the Dirt era, got the largely boomer crowd moving and grooving to AWB classics like “Pick Up The Pieces” and “Cut The Cake.”
As a fan of every single proverbial lion that presently combines to form the Voltron that is this 16th All-Starr Band, waiting 37 years to finally catch Ringo onstage at Bethel Woods was well worth the wait.
Go out and see this band while you can, especially while Mr. Starkey is still jumping and dancing and running around onstage at a spry 86. And while tonight’s show at the PNC Bank Arts Center has been canceled due to the Nor’Easter bombarding the Northeast this weekend, you can catch the All-Starr Band in the New York area this week at Forest Hills in Queens on Oct. 1 and the Palace Theater in Albany on Oct. 6.
Long may they run.
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