PORTLAND — Fifty years after the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan show, the Portland Symphony Orchestra will bring Beatlemania to Portland. The Pops! concert featuring The Beatles tribute band Classical Mystery Tour will be held at Merrill Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 3, and at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, May 4.

Classical Mystery Tour gives audiences the opportunity to enjoy a variety of the Beatles’ music just as it was written – with accompaniment from the orchestra. From early hits through the solo years, audiences will enjoy favorites like “Yesterday” with the accompanying string quartet, and “Penny Lane” with a live trumpet section.

Featuring band members who look and sound like the real deal, CMT will open with the Beatles as they were when they arrived in the U.S. – complete with black suits, thin ties, and mop tops. Throughout the show, audiences will see and hear the transition to a more psychedelic sound, the addition of the orchestra and the later years when the band was beginning to dissolve.

When the Beatles recorded Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, their songs were so complex that the original four-piece format couldn’t recreate them on stage. According to PSO resident Beatles expert and concert manager, Joe Boucher, “The beauty of modern production now is that we can have a full symphony orchestra; you can have a band on stage, everything can be amplified and balanced and mixed so that you hear the full flower of what they were writing.”

Tickets range from $25-$75 and are available at 207-842-0800 or www.porttix.com. Tickets may also be purchased at the box office at 20 Myrtle St., Monday through Saturday, noon to 6 p.m.