The question was, would they play Revolution?
The head of Nanjing Automobile Corporation’s MG division is a big Beatles fan I was told, and so it was arranged for a Fab Four tribute band to play at the carmaker’s 60th anniversary concert.
Which is how the Upbeat Beatles came to belt out a few songs at the Concert Hall of Nanjing Art College.
I think there may have also been something to do with Nanjing Automobile plugging the Britishness of its MG brand ahead of its launch.
Anyway, the band took to the stage in early 1960s attires – moptops and stage suites, and with a Ni Hao (hello) they started the show with Can’t Buy Me Love.
It was clear the afterlife has been good to ‘John’ with the man playing his part a bit chubbier than Mr Lennon.
I started to wonder, would he attempt a repeat of Lennon’s joke when playing at the Royal Variety Performance.
There he asked people to clap if they liked the music and those in the boxes (royalty mainly) to show their appreciation by shaking their jewellery.
With quite a few officials in tonight, he didn’t risk it, and the band played on with I Want To Hold Your Hand and Love Me Do, which got the Chinese clapping.
A few waved Beatles banners which had been thoughtfully left around by the organisers, but it all did seem a bit strange.
How do Chinese people behave at concerts? And also, how do you behave at a concert when you are in business suit with lots of dignitaries?
Everyone stayed firmly rooted to their seats, and the language barrier got in the way of some of the banter from the band, who had got the Liverpool accents down just right.
Their attempts to get the audience on side by saying how much they liked China fell on largely blank faces, so the Upbeat Beatles thought it better to stick to the music.
These four lads who shook the world (who actually come from London) did much better here and managed to get people off their seats with Twist and Shout.
And then they sat down again.
Most of the songs were from the early, moptop era, apart from Get Back and Let It Be.
The music was a pretty faithful reproduction of the originals, and the set closed with an encore of Hey Jude, which had most people standing up and swaying along.
But strangely, there was no Revolution.
And definitely no Back in the USSR.