THIS weekend the Railway Hotel is set to take punters on a magical mystery tour through the Beatles back catalogue at a special convention in tribute to the Fab Four.

It’s the second time the Southend pub has held the convention. It’s the brainchild of manager Fi Jacobs, who came up with the idea after going to the Small Faces convention in London.

“I thought it was really good,” she says. “But the only thing that bothered me was they repeated the same songs all day.

“I thought it’d be really cool to have a Beatles one, but it would be better if every band did a new song and no one repeated it.”

So the day will see bands and musicians performing their own versions of Beatles classics, from early to late, and even some unreleased material. The performers have elected to play them on a first-come-first-served basis.

One of the bands taking to the stage will be new Southend outfit the Percy Furkettle Trip. Vocalist Kelly Buckley says she’s looking forward to the gig.

“We thought it’d be a fun thing to kick ourselves off with,” she explains. “I went to the one last year and it was really good. A lot of people did straight covers and some people did their own versions. We decided we’re going to do completely our own versions of the songs.

“Any musician can cover a song, but the point of having your own band is to do your own thing. It is a bit of a worry, though, because people might not like what we’ve done with these brilliant songs.”

Kelly is hoping to have a guest drummer on the tabla, an Indian drum, to lend an extra Indian feel to the band’s interpretation.

She says: “One of our songs is with a sitar originally, an Indian guitar, but we’ve done a tribal version. We wanted to keep the Indian flavour with the vocals, which are a bit trippy and dreamy.”

Also on the bill will be local acts including the Seasiders, Wendy Solomon, the Famous Potatoes, Steve Pilley and Fi’s band the Tuppenny Bunters, which includes Railway boss Dave Dulake.

Fi says: “The Tuppenny Bunters normally do garagey, jazzy kind of stuff, so we’re going to be doing Beatles stuff in that style.

“I like it because you get so many different styles. Some people do it solo – one guy does just bass, so it’s really interesting to hear.”

The Beatles Convention takes place at the Railway Hotel, Clifftown Road, Southend, on Sunday from 2pm. All proceeds raised will go to Cancer Research.