Continued from 1D

everybody knows I'm here. Kids are outside the hotel."

Fans congregated and screamed wherever the Beatles went in the '60s. But Starr certainly didn't expect that type of frenzy to continue.

"You didn't say, 'When I'm 55, this will be happening still. I'll be 55 in July," he said. "Of course when you're in your 20s you think everyone at 60 should be shot. Now as I'm rapidly approaching it, I don't quite feel that way."

Starr's band includes guitarists Randy Bachman (Bachman Turner Overdrive) and Mark Farner (Grand Funk Railroad); bassist John Entwistle (the Who), keyboard player Billy Preston, singer-songwriter Felix Cavaliere (Young Rascals) and drummer Zak Starkey, Ringo's son.

Preston was in the band on the 1989 tour and Zak was on the tour in 1992. "This is like the best 1-800 band, like one of those records everybody is on, that you order by phone from television," Starr said.

"It's like one of those revue shows but we're all in the same band. Everybody takes center stage. It lifts the weight off me. I don't have to stand up there two hours doing it my way. We do it their way as well."

His band needs two drummers, Starr says, because he opens as frontman with three numbers. "Zak is the solo drummer then I get on drums and we both drum for other members of the band. I do some numbers from the drums."

He gave Zak a lesson in drumming when Zak was 10, Starr says. "I went to give him a second lesson. He said, 'I can do that.' I said, 'OK, you're on your own now.' He is doing great."

Starr didn't have any lessons in drumming. "Lessons of life I had.

"I learned by playing with other musicians. I've never been able to sit in a room on my own and play."