VERY dissapointing news.
My enjoyment of World Showcase increased MULTIFOLD once I began slowing down and treating the World Showcase live entertainment as "ATTRACTIONS" in their own right. So I typically spend a full day just in World Showcase, doing not only the 2 boat dark rides, 4 movies, American Adventure, Friendship Boats, and all the walk-through Art Galeries; but also seeing most of the live entertainment playing that day.
And as a HUGE Beatles fan, British Invasion were, without a doubt, my World Showcase musical favorites.
I will say my favorite era of British Invasion was the first three years I experienced them (2006 - early 09) when they were still exclusively doing Beatles material. The format they had up to early 2009 was AWESOME. If you watched all 5 of their shows in a given day, you were literally watching the Beatles evolve before your eyes. The first show had them dressed as the "fresh faced young lads" of the early 60's Beatlemania era of "She Loves You", "I Wanna Hold Your Hand", etc.
With each show their costumes, instruments, and sound would evolve, leading up to my favorite 2 shows at 7 and 8 PM.
7 PM was usually the Sgt Pepper show, which saw the band dressed in the Pepper costumes, and the Sgt Pepper logo was on the bass drum. The band performed the "psychadelic" material from the 1967 albums Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour (my two fave Beatles albums) during this show. Such as "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", "With A Little Help From My Friends", "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds", "When I'm 64", "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Penny Lane", and "All You Need Is Love". This was a real treat, as even the Beatles themselves never performed these songs on a tour, as they stopped touring before the Pepper album came out.
And the sound was VERY faithful to the album versions, thanks to being able to play the sophisticated string, brass, and woodwind parts on the keyboard. Plus, the guys had the guitar, bass, drums, piano, and voice parts down perfectly. If the Beatles themselves had toured Pepper in 1967, I'm not sure that they themselves could have sounded any better!
Then the 8 PM show saw the band paying tribute to the last 3 Beatles albums - The White Album, Abbey Road, and Let It Be. Sometimes they would even play a John Lennon solo track, "Imagine", near the end of the show.
On a weekend trip in fall, 2009, I noticed the chronological, themed shows were gone as were the more esoteric Beatles numbers; replaced with covers of other British groups from the 60's. Only the most well-know Beatles songs were retained, and these represented about half the sets. I asked one of the band members about this, and he said, "We're not happy about the changes, but the entertainment department made us do it."
Whether the band leaving was Disney's decision or the band's, I can't say this surprises me, given the recent loss of both the Dragon Legend Acrobats AND Si Xian from the China pavilion, and the loss a few years ago of Spellmann's Gledje from Norway. ALL of those were personal favorites as well.
When I first moved to the area seasonally in '06, these were my fave WS entertainers that I pretty much never missed on a full WS day (clockwise):
Mariachi Cobre
Spellmann's Gledje (gone)
Dragon Legend Acrobats (gone)
Si Xian (gone)
Oktoberfest Musicanten (depending on crowds, I am not always allowed to go in and watch the show, since I don't eat there)
British Invasion (soon to be gone).
I also enjoy the Voices of Liberty, Japanese drummers, Miyuki, MoRockin, and Off Kilter, but the ones listed first are/were my faves. The only stuff I don't get into are the "interactive comedy players" audience participation type stuff, so I skip those.
When the Acrobats left a few months ago, I told an entertainment manager how dissapointing it was for me, especially in the wake of already losing Si Xian and Spellmann's Glidje. He said to expect more changes in the coming months. I said "Mariachi and British Invasion are safe, right?" He got a squeamish look on his face, and said "I can't comment on that". Now I know what he was referring to
Then he started going on with the cliches about how "the parks aren't museums" and how "Walt welcomed change to keep things fresh".
So I said, "How is taking away Lights Of Winter, the Epcot tree lighting show, the Pocahontas show at AK, and the live music in China and Norway, with no replacement in sight for any of them, "keeping things fresh" or a change Walt would have supported, as his big thing was "PLUSSING"?
He had no reply to that.