ON THE TOWN: If you’ve been watching...

ON THE TOWN: If you’ve been watching the new generation of garage bands that have popped up everywhere around town, resplendent in ‘60s psychedelic attire and newly fashionable shoulder-length hair, you get the distinct impression that these young striplings were born 20 years too late--that they’d love to have been on hand for the heady days of the original British invasion.

Obviously Greg Shaw, Bomp Records’ resident pop archivist, had the same idea. He’ll put it in action this Friday and Saturday at the all-ages Cavern Club, where a host of San Diego-based bands will stage a tribute to the original Liverpool club of the same name where the Beatles and other local faves got their start. Billed as a Mersey Beat festival, the show will feature members of three local garage groups, including the Tell-Tale Hearts and the Gravedigger V. But instead of performing under their own names, they will pose (in Carnaby Street threads and all) as the Rolling Stones (who’ll headline Friday) and the Beatles (who’ll top the bill Saturday), re-creating those group’s early-’60s R&B; repertoires. Other local bands, including the Beguiled and the Milkmen, will also perform songs by such Swinging London hipsters as the Kinks, the Zombies and the Searchers.