the beatles last tour

Remembering Beatles’ Final Concert

By Jordan Runtagh

Jordan Runtagh

Touring was killing the Beatles by 1966. Perhaps not literally, but that seemed like less of a guarantee with each passing day. A trip to Asia that July ended with a frightening incident in the Philippines, when an inadvertent snub of the dictatorial first family provoked a nationwide turn against the foursome. Their entire police detail was suddenly withdrawn and the Beatles were left to defend themselves against a hoard of angry nationalists who manhandled them all the way to the airport. Only after being stripped of concert proceeds were they permitted to leave the country.

Following the harrowing ordeal, no one was particularly thrilled about having to hit the road again for a U.S. tour the following month. “We’re going to have a couple of weeks to recuperate before we go and get beaten up by the Americans,” George Harrison cracked with more than a touch of resentment. The off-the-cuff joke turned to a horrifying reality when a supposedly anti-religious statement made my John Lennon ignited a firestorm among Bible-toting zealots south of the Mason-Dixon line. They torched Beatles albums, boycotted songs and unleashed a torrent of death threats. Fresh bullet holes on the fuselage of the band’s plane cleared up any doubts: They were in harm’s way.

But it wasn’t just the physical danger. The Beatles were dying as musicians. Playing for a crowd had once been their lifeblood, but fame had robbed them of everything that made it joyful and fulfilling. The sporting arenas were too big and the screams of an adoring audience were too loud for the 100-watt Vox amplifiers to manage. Stadium rock was in its infancy, and even basic equipment like foldback speakers had yet to be invented. Unable to hear themselves, their musicianship began to atrophy.

“In 1966 the road was getting pretty boring,” Ringo Starr recalled in the Beatles Anthology documentary. “It was coming to the end for me. Nobody was listening at the shows. That was OK at the beginning, but we were playing really bad.” Perched in the back on his drum kit, he was reduced to following the three wiggling backsides at the front of the stage just to determine where they were in the song.

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At least the audience couldn’t hear how ragged they had become – not that they would have cared. “The sound at our concerts was always bad. We would be joking with each other on stage just to keep ourselves amused,” remembered Harrison in the Anthology . Lennon took particular delight in making vaguely obscene alterations to their song lyrics (“I Wanna Hold Your Gland”), knowing full well that no one had any clue what he was saying. “It was just a sort of a freak show,” he later said. “The Beatles were the show, and the music had nothing to do with it.”

The boredom of playing the same dozen songs each day also began to grate on the group’s notoriously short attention span. Making matters worse, most of the tunes were several years old. Much of their recent work was enhanced by backing musicians and innovative studio techniques, making it simply too challenging to perform given the technical limitations of a live setting. In fact, the Beatles would never play a single track off of their latest album, Revolver , released just days before they kicked off their dates.

Neither they nor the audience could hear anything, they weren’t improving their skills, they weren’t promoting their new music, and they weren’t enjoying themselves. They certainly didn’t need the money, so why were they doing this?

The question was on everyone’s mind during the 1966 U.S. tour, a cursed excursion beset by a string of unmitigated disasters. The Klu Klux Klan, still outraged over Lennon’s “bigger than Jesus” comment, picketed some gigs, while other shows competed with nearby race riots. A firecracker exploded during their Memphis concert, causing the band to momentarily believe that a gunman finally made good on the assassination threats.

Biblical rains at an open-air concert in Cincinnati put the band in the unenviable position of either canceling the show and potentially instigating a riot among the 35,000 expectant fans, or performing as scheduled amid the very real risk of electrocution. “It was really scary,” Nat Weiss, the band’s attorney, told author Philip Norman. “The crowd kept screaming, ‘We want the Beatles!’ and Paul grew so upset at the prospect of going out there that he was sick. The strain was too great. And he threw up in the dressing room.” After roadie Mal Evans received a shock severe enough to throw him across the stage, the show was postponed until the next day. “The only gig we ever missed!” noted a proud Harrison.

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After playing the makeup show that afternoon, the Beatles flew to St. Louis, where they were confronted with another rainy catastrophe. The makeshift shelter hastily constructed in the open-air Busch Stadium did little to guard against the elements. “They put bits of corrugated iron over the stage, so it felt like the worst little gig we’d ever played at even before we’d started as a band,” remembered Paul McCartney . “We were having to worry about the rain getting in the amps and this took us right back to the Cavern days. It was worse than those early days.”

There are few roles more thankless than an opening act at a Beatles concert in 1966, but the support bands struggled mightily to be heard against the fierce gusts of wind that blew in from San Francisco Bay, stirring up miniature dust storms across the infield. “It was not the sort of night you’d like to turn out for an outdoor concert,” observed Barrow. “Emperor” Nelson concurred. “As any Giants fans will know, Candlestick Park in August, at night, was cold, foggy and windy.”

The Remains were the first to take the stage. “A wild sea wind was blowing in every direction,” wrote Tashian. “The audience was about 200 feet away – much farther than usual. It made us feel extremely isolated from the audience.” According to Marshall, the setting was a long way off from today’s flashy pyrotechnics and Jumbotron extravaganzas. “The sound was pretty primitive and the lighting was just baseball lights.”

After the Remains finished their set, they stayed on the field to back Bobby Hebb, who sang his recent hit “Sunny” into the bitter cold and fog. Then came the Cyrkle, a band represented by the Beatles’ own manager, Brian Epstein. They were riding high in the charts with “Red Rubber Ball,” a tune co-written by Paul Simon. And finally there were the Ronettes, who had been friends with the Beatles since before their first trip to America. Although they hadn’t had a Top 20 hit in three years, the two bands enjoyed each other’s company and the Beatles brought them along. Lead singer Veronica Bennett was barred from the tour by her increasingly jealous boyfriend (and future Beatles producer) Phil Spector, who was paranoid that she would revive her dormant fling with Lennon. Bennett’s cousin Elaine Mayes took her place.

The Beatles kept the pre-show reverie going in their dressing room, but Tony Barrow detected something different in the air as they changed into their dark green Edwardian suits and silk floral shirts. He’d spent many years in their inner circle – in fact, it was he who coined the “Fab Four” moniker – but this was something he’d never felt before. “There was a sort of end-of-term spirit thing going on,” he said decades later. “And there was also this kind of feeling amongst all of us around the Beatles, that this might just be the last concert that they will ever do.”

His suspicions were confirmed when McCartney sidled up to him just before show time. “I remember Paul, casually, at the very last minute saying, ‘Have you got your cassette recorder with you?’ I said, ‘Yes, of course.’ Paul then said, ‘Tape it, will you? Tape the show.'” That had certainly never happened before.

At 9:27, after the Ronettes had finished, four tiny figures bounded out of the Giants dugout and across the baseball diamond. They ushered in a wave of screams that an attending Joan Baez later described as “like clouds bursting.” The Beatles were surrounded by a 200-member police guard, as well as a Loomis armored car, which was kept running behind the stage in case they had to make a quick get-away. They clutched cameras as well as guitars and drumsticks, snapping pictures of the grandstand for posterity.

The elevated stage had been constructed at the edge of the infield over second base. As an added security measure, a chain-link fence surrounded the perimeter of the stage. Fittingly, the Beatles would quite literally play their 11-song, 33-minute set in a cage.

As they plugged in their guitars and did a quick tune-up, Barrow got in position by the stage and held his tape recorder aloft. “Although I didn’t fancy my chances of making a brilliant recording of the concert, one thing in my favor was the great distance between the stage and the stands at this particular venue,” he explained. “Because of this, I guessed I might be able to capture sound from the stage without picking up too much of the nonstop screams and shouts of the fans coming from the stands.”

A quick shouted hello and the band were off into an abbreviated version of Chuck Berry’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll Music,” a mainstay of their set since their days (or rather, nights) as a club band playing the red-light Reeperbahn district of Hamburg, Germany, at the beginning of their career. Though lacking the energy they had then – they couldn’t possibly be that hungry again – the Beatles attacked the old favorite with a bite that had largely been absent on the tour. Just this last time, they resolved to make an effort.

Without stopping they launched into their funky B side, “She’s a Woman,” allowing McCartney to go into his finest soul-shouter routine before pausing to deliver one of his charmingly halting stage greetings. “Hello, good evening. We’d like to carry on with a song, not surprisingly, by, er, written by George. And this song was on our Rubber Soul LP. And the song is called ‘If I Needed, er, Someone!'”

Beyond contending with the wind, the band fought to be heard above their familiar nemesis: screams. It was like standing on a crowded runway with jets taking off on all sides. Along with guns, security guards had been issued cotton balls to stick in their ears in an attempt to ward off headaches. One concert attendee, Ellie Segal, watched a pair of clearly annoyed adults ask a shrieking teen if she’d like to be quiet and actually listen to the music. “She looked at them disdainfully and said, ‘If I wanted to hear them I would buy their album.'” Another fan recalled seeing reporters ask a young girl why she was sobbing. “Because I love Paul and I can’t tell him.”

The mania swelled as the show progressed. Five boys rushed the stage in the middle of “Baby’s in Black,” and more fans followed during “Nowhere Man.” Still more invaded the stadium by climbing the enormously high centerfield fence. Clearly annoyed, the band eyed the armored truck. Just in case.

For one introduction, McCartney took a playful, and un-PC, jab at Brian Epstein. “We’d like to do the next number now, which is a special request from all the backroom boys on this tour … ‘I Wanna Be Your Man!'” (“Backroom boy” was slang for “gay man,” which Epstein was.) The band was likely unaware that their manager was still in Los Angeles at that very moment dealing with a major personal crisis: An ex-lover had stolen his briefcase filled with legally questionable pills, explicit homosexual love letters, steamy Polaroid photos of his young male friends and more than $20,000 in cash skimmed from concert proceeds to be handed out as a bonus to the band. If news of any one of these items leaked to the press, it would be more than enough to torpedo his reputation. So, to his lasting regret, the man who discovered the Beatles in a dank Liverpool cellar five years earlier missed what he knew would be their final show.

The Beatles knew it too, and they decided to memorialize the occasion with a kind of graduation photo. “We placed our cameras on the amplifiers and put them on a timer,” says Harrison. “We stopped between tunes, Ringo got down off the drums, and we stood facing the amplifiers with our back to the audience and took photographs. We knew: ‘This is it – we’re not going to do this again. This is the last concert.’ It was a unanimous decision.”

As the final notes from “Paperback Writer” drifted past the crowd and into the bay, McCartney blurted out his final stage announcement with the mechanical mumble of a man who just turned in his notice. He doesn’t even bother with the title. “We’d like to ask you to join in and, er, clap, sing, talk, do anything. Anyway, the song is … good night.”

No one was listening, so they played the last number for themselves. It was a song that had made the journey with them from teenage social clubs to stadiums: Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally.” It was their showpiece, remaining in their set list almost constantly throughout their career. It had been their opening song when they played the Litherland Town Hall in December 1960, later enshrined as ground zero for Beatlemania. Nearly six years later, it would bookend their touring life.

They held nothing back. They had no reason to. McCartney begins the song with an otherworldly shriek in an upper register usually reserved for later verses. This night he started in high gear, and there was nowhere to go but up. In his voice you could hear traces of a teenage boy bewitched by the sound of flamboyant pianist from Macon, Georgia. You could hear traces of the long nights in Hamburg. You could hear the weariness of years on the road. It was probably a performance for the ages.

But we’ll never be sure, because Barrow’s tape cut out. Cassettes contained 30 minutes per side in 1966, and he was unable to flip it over to catch the end. Though devastating for Beatle fans not to have the final live song preserved in entirety, it’s oddly poetic – like a cinematic cutaway that spares us the hero’s final fall. It’s best to remember them still playing.

The song eventually ended and they were free. It was over. But the end of their touring career didn’t offer the unbridled ecstasy they had anticipated. In fact, it was undeniably sad. Playing music for people was something the Beatles loved. It was what had brought them together all those years ago. Long before they became studio pioneers, performance was the band’s ultimate joy. And now it was gone, taken from them by their fame.

Lennon, the most vocal about quitting all this touring nonsense, paused on the stage for a moment, taking it all in. Those who were there that night insist they heard him play the delicate guitar riff from “In My Life,” the introspective ballad about all he’d experienced and loved in his incredibly young life. The moment passed, and he ducked into the armored car bound for the airport, where the band was to fly back to Los Angeles. They had been in San Francisco for a grand total of five hours that day.

“Right – that’s it, I’m not a Beatle anymore!” George Harrison was heard to gleefully exclaim as he sank into his airplane seat and tossed back a well-deserved drink. “I didn’t really project into the future,” he recalled of his mindset three decades later. “I was just thinking, ‘This is going to be such a relief – not to have to go through this madness anymore.'”

McCartney was a little sunnier in his outlook. While speaking to Teen Set reporter Judy Sims, he outlined what he saw as the band’s future. “We’re not very good performers, actually. We’re better in a recording studio where we can control things and work on it until it’s right. With performing there’s so much that can go wrong, and you can’t go back over it and do it right.” Their next release, 1967’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band , took five months to record. It was the longest they had ever spent on a project – but they got it right.

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As the Beatles’ plane soared into the night sky, McCartney popped his head over the back of Tony Barrow’s seat. “Did you get anything on tape?” he asked. Barrow handed him the cassette. “I got the lot, except that the tape ran out in the middle of ‘Long Tall Sally.'” The Cute One was unconcerned. “Paul was clearly chuffed to have such a unique souvenir of what would prove to be an historic evening,” said Barrow.

“Back in London I kept the concert cassette under lock and key in a drawer of my office desk, making a single copy for my personal collection and passing the original to Paul for him to keep. Years later my Candlestick Park recording re-appeared in public as a bootleg album. If you hear a bootleg version of the final concert that finishes during ‘Long Tall Sally’ it must have come either from Paul’s copy or mine, but we never did identify the music thief!”

Barrow died in May 2016, just a few months before the 50th anniversary of the Candlestick Park concert. Thanks to his efforts, everyone can enjoy this historic show. It’s guaranteed to raise a smile, and well worth the price of admission.

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The Beatles live: Candlestick Park, San Francisco: their final concert

Although they made an unannounced live appearance in January 1969 on the rooftop of the Apple building, The Beatles’ final live concert took place on 29 August 1966 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California.

There was a big talk at Candlestick Park that this had got to end. At that San Francisco gig it seemed that this could possibly be the last time, but I never felt 100% certain till we got back to London. John wanted to give up more than the others. He said that he’d had enough.

The Park’s capacity was 42,500, but only 25,000 tickets were sold, leaving large sections of unsold seats. Fans paid between $4.50 and $6.50 for tickets, and The Beatles’ fee was around $90,000. The show’s promoter was local company Tempo Productions.

The Beatles took 65% of the gross, the city of San Francisco took 15% of paid admissions and were given 50 free tickets. This arrangement, coupled with low ticket sales and other unexpected expenses resulted in a financial loss for Tempo Productions.

Candlestick Park was the home of the baseball team the San Francisco Giants. The stage was located just behind second base on the field, and was five feet high and surrounded by a six-foot high wire fence.

The compère was ‘Emperor’ Gene Nelson of KYA 1260 AM, and the support acts were, in order of appearance, The Remains, Bobby Hebb, The Cyrkle and The Ronettes. The show began at 8pm.

I was the MC, and, as any Giants fans will know, Candlestick Park in August, at night, was cold, foggy and windy. The funniest thing this night was one of the warm-up acts, Bobby Hebb. He stood up on the stage at Candlestick Park, with the fog, and the wind blowing, and he was singing ‘Sunny’! It was tough anyway to work a ballpark as an MC, especially as The Beatles were taking their time to get out. I was trying to entertain a crowd that was shouting, ‘Beatles, Beatles, Beatles.’ The dressing room was chaos. There were loads of people there. The press tried to get passes for their kids and the singer Joan Baez was in there. Any local celebrity, who was in town, was in the dressing room. They were having a party in there. They were having a perfectly wonderful time, while I was freezing my buns off on second base!

The Beatles took to the stage at 9.27pm, and performed 11 songs: ‘Rock And Roll Music’ , ‘She’s A Woman’ , ‘If I Needed Someone’ , ‘Day Tripper’ , ‘Baby’s In Black’ , ‘I Feel Fine’ , ‘Yesterday’ , ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’ , ‘Nowhere Man’ , ‘Paperback Writer’ , and ‘Long Tall Sally’ .

The group knew it was to be their final concert. Recognising its significance, John Lennon and Paul McCartney took a camera onto the stage, with which they took pictures of the crowd, the rest of the group, and themselves at arm’s length.

Before one of the last numbers, we actually set up this camera, I think it had a fisheye, a wide-angle lens. We set it up on the amplifier and Ringo came off the drums, and we stood with our backs to the audience and posed for a photograph, because we knew that was the last show.

As The Beatles made their way to Candlestick Park, Paul McCartney asked their press officer Tony Barrow to make a recording of the concert on audio cassette, using a hand-held recorder. The cassette lasted 30 minutes on each side, and, as Barrow didn’t flip it during the show, the recording cut off during final song ‘Long Tall Sally’ .

There was a sort of end of term spirit thing going on, and there was also this kind of feeling amongst all of us around The Beatles, that this might just be the last concert that they will ever do. I remember Paul, casually, at the very last minute, saying, ‘Have you got your cassette recorder with you?’ and I said, ‘Yes, of course.’ Paul then said, ‘Tape it will you? Tape the show,’ which I did, literally just holding the microphone up in the middle of the field. As a personal souvenir of the occasion, it was a very nice thing to have and the only difference was that it wasn’t a spectacular occasion. It was nothing like Shea Stadium, there was nothing special about it at all, except that The Beatles did put in extra ad-libs and link material which they hadn’t put in before on any other occasion.

Barrow gave the original tape of the Candlestick Park concert to McCartney. He also made a single copy, which was kept in a locked drawer in Barrow’s office desk. The recording has since become widely circulated on bootlegs, although quite how is not known.

At San Francisco airport, as our plane prepared to take off, Paul’s head came over the top of my seat from the row behind: ‘Did you get anything on tape?’ I passed the cassette recorder back to him: ‘I got the lot, except that the tape ran out in the middle of Long Tall Sally.’ He asked if I had left the machine running between numbers to get all the announcements and the boys’ ad lib remarks. I said: ‘It’s all there from the guitar feedback before the first number.’ Paul was clearly chuffed to have such a unique souvenir of what would prove to be an historic evening – the farewell stage show from the Fab Four. Back in London I kept the concert cassette under lock and key in a drawer of my office desk, making a single copy for my personal collection and passing the original to Paul for him to keep. Years later my Candlestick Park recording re-appeared in public as a bootleg album. If you hear a bootleg version of the final concert that finishes during Long Tall Sally it must have come either from Paul’s copy or mine, but we never did identify the music thief!

Also on this day...

• 2013: Paul McCartney announces New song and album
• 2008: Sam Taylor-Wood to direct Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy
• 2003: Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band live: Harrah’s Lake Tahoe, Stateline
• 1998: Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band live: Salle Des Etoiles, Monte Carlo
• 1989: Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band live: Cal Expo Amphitheatre, Sacramento
• 1968: Recording: Dear Prudence
• 1965: The Beatles live: Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles
• 1964: The Beatles live: Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, New York
• 1963: The Beatles live: Odeon Cinema, Southport
• 1963: Television: The Mersey Sound
• 1962: The Beatles live: Floral Hall Ballroom, Morecambe
• 1961: The Beatles live: Cavern Club, Liverpool (lunchtime)
• 1960: The Beatles live: Indra Club, Hamburg
• 1959: The Quarrymen live: Casbah Coffee Club, Liverpool

Want more? Visit the Beatles history section .

Latest Comments

These days alot of old bands like to proclaim their “Farewell Tour” to the public in hopes of garnishing much higher ticket sales. Often it’s been very effective but the fans caught on when many times the bands ended up playing two, three, or even more so called “final tours”.

That said, can you imagine how packed the arenas and stadiums would have been in 1966 if The Beatles had made an announcement that it was their final tour? Ticket scalpers would have had a field day!

Art Nelson was the emcee at Candlestick Park with all the jelly beans thrown. DJ from KEWB.

It was Jelly Babies actually…And they happened at many concerts after George mentioned he liked them to a reporter

That was in the UK. There were no Jelly Babies in the US, so they threw jelly beans instead.

I am lucky to have seen The Beatles @ Candlestick Park on Aug. 29, 1966. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! I was also sitting way back behind 3rd base, way far from the stage. We had to use binoculars to see The Beatles faces. And I remember Gene Nelson from KYA in San Francisco. But Candlestick Park is not really in SF, it’s actually in Daly City. I had an aunt and uncle who lived right behind Candlestick Park. Not too far from downtown SF. I also remember that it was very noisy and we had a hard time hearing The Beatles play because of all the screaming fans and all the yelling. I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever seen. And those young girls crying for their idols was so hilarious. I’ve never seen anything quite like that ever. The sound systems at time were not very good at all then, as they are way better today. Every sound seemed so distorted. They could play as loud as they wanted, but it was not that great. I am pretty sure that’s why they stopped touring, because what’s the point if your own fans can’t hear you? I couldn’t believe that I was there and I got to experience seeing and hearing The Beatles forever. I also remember that Bobby Head (Sunny) also performed, as did The Shirells, The Cyrcle (Red Rubber Ball), and I think The 13th Floor Elevator (Resurrection Shuffle). My how time flies. And eat your heart out. I am also going to the 50th Beatles Reunion @ The Hollywood Bowl on Aug. 23rd. How lucky am I? I also snagged 2 Beatles posters when they came out with The Beatles Guitar Hero in 2009. Since their breakup I did go and see Beatlemania a few times @ different locations over the years. It is something not to be missed if you really want to go back in time and relive those moments. Beatles forever, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! Oh, and a few years ago I was fortunate enough to meet George Harrison’s sister Geogegette. She was promoting The Beatles as well, very lovely lady.

That was The Beatles Rock Band, not Guitar Hero. 🙂

Rosie this is great! I am writing on this 50th anniv of the candlestick concert…Loved what you wrote! How exciting to attend that reunion…I appreciate this as I was there, still have my original concert ticket. I was one of the few not screaming or crying, tho i was very much a Beatlemaniac! 🙂 It was so loud, the audience–and the great band was more the size of beetles to me… plus whether their sound wasl “fab” or not who could say? They sounded like a bad old record player to me.. :)couldn’t even see their faces and my friends hogged the binoculars. I recall how we dressed , just so “mod”[go go boots, miniskirt, “poorboy” ribbed tops and JL [john lennon] caps– and I was so thrilled ,even tho the actual concert was such a disappointment due to the frenetic fans–I am so happy to have been a part of it. The highlight of my early teen yrs, for sure. BTW, the Beatlesbible.com, is correct the tickets were that “cheap”.. I only had to babysit two nites to earn my $5.50ticket!I was in front of the band almost directly but yet so so far, huh… [Back then a beatles album with 11 -12 songs or so, sold for well under $3.] Take care. I hope you and others read this tonite.. it’s such a memorable day for many of us.

Rosie, George is my favorite Beatle. How lucky you were to meet his sister. I didnt think her name was Georgette..no matter that is the best!!Take care!

Hey Tea, i am still in Ca. But closer to Los Angeles now. In August i did attend a Beatles Tribute Band Concert. Had my picture taken in front of the group dressed as The Beatles from Sgt. Pepper era. Closest i could get to my favorite band. Reliving my teen years and even Neil Diamond Tribute and The Beach Boys Tribute Band. All and all the 60′ was.and always will be the greatest time to be a teenager. A lot of the concerts were actually free sponsored by our local politicians. The concert series started in March of last year and ended last September. Did you happen to see the Beatles new video The Touring Years? I loved your story honestly and glad you can relate.

Oh, forgot to mention…last year on July 7th, i went to Capitol Records in Hollywood to celebrate Ringo’s birthday. I got to see him up close and took some pictures. Don’t get jealous ok. I may go next year if they do it again.

Candlestick Park was in the city limits of San Francisco. Candlestick Park is about 5 miles south of downtown. The Cow Palace where the Beatles preformed during their ’64 & ’65 tours is in Daly City just over the county line. KYA radio was giving away free tickets wich is how I went to the show.

Sorry but Candlestick Park was in the City & County of San Francisco – not Daly City – not Brisbane! (I also won free tickets from KYA to the show)

I was 9 years old and in love with their music. My Dad took me to this concert.I could barely hear them above the screaming ninnies. Still it was an exciting evening I’ll never forget.

Some video with audio of the last Candlestick Park Concert 8/29/66 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdnVPY71gpI&ab_channel=AdamBound

here is the entire concert audio only

There is a comment by George above saying they took pictures. Has anyone seen any picture from this concert? I have only one.Thank you to Happy Nat for providing that Day Tripper clip.

They did bring their own cameras to document the end of 4 years of gruelling world tours and everything else. You can see published pics of them taking the stage snapping away. HOWEVER!!!!! If there is ONE picture I want to see, they had their roadie Mal Evans take THE final picture and I can’t find it anywhere. I HAS to be a personal shot that they kept for themselves…… They all 4 went to the front of the stage and turned their backs to the audience and “pop”. I’d LOVE to see that. It’s also cool that before the final song, Paul did his “it’s time to go to bed” speech then suddenly got nastalgic about it all. Instead of jumping into I’m Down”, which was their closer the last 2 years, he hit a G note on the ol’ Hofner and slammed into Long Tall Sally, their big show stopper from their Hamburg days…….”One more time for just us there, lads?!!”

I am looking for the very same pic… I want one BAD. I’ve seen it in documentaries but can’t find one publicly. If you find one lemme know!!!

A small correction: Emperor Gene Nelson, who emceed the concert, was morning disc jockey at 1260 KYA. There was no such station as KSFQ-FM.

Super Harlow 1260 KYA Radio San Francisco, Calif.

So sad such poor attendence… if they only knew …three years later came the impromptu concert on top of the Apple office in London it was the last time the Beatles played in public. Soooooo sad (sigh). I dream of what could have been. Would it have changed the outcome for John. I was too young to ever see them and for this I’m jealous and sad…the rebel Rolling Stones almost broke too thank god their still going strong drawing huge crowds of all ages to their concert imagine nearly fifty years. That could have been the Beatles too such a shame…

Hi do you no if there are any copies of THE BEATLES LIVE AT CANDLESTICK PARK 1966, ive been told there are some and would love to get one for my husband also what sort of price would it be. many thanks June

It’s never been released officially, but it’s widely available on bootleg. Try torrent sites. Don’t pay for it.

Yes, there is. Google it and you should find it.i think it sells for about $40.00.

Correction.1260 is an AM frequency, not an FM frequency. It was KYA 1260 AM, not FM.

I’ve listened closely to Paul’s introduction to Long Tall Sally and I think there’s an important part you’ve left out (although you and others may not hear what I hear):

“…And we’d like to ask you to join in and, er, clap, sing, talk, in fact, go home, no, do anything. Anyway, the song is… good night.”

Yep – I think they’re so fed up he even says, a little off mic, “in fact, go home”. The remarks from the stage in this show really show where they were at at this time. Just sick of the screaming and pointlessness of live performing when no one even listened.

I took my wife of 43 years to this concert on our first date. I remember they wore kelly green suits and white socks, which was not cool in those days. You really couldn’t hear them through all the screaming. It also seemed to me that they ended early, maybe fed up with everything. I didn’t realize till the late 90’s that it was their last performance.

WHERE WHERE WHERE can I find a pic of the beatles with their backs to the crowd they took onstage???? I’ve seen them in documentaries but can find a single pic online! HELP!!

One Of Johns Pictures from Candlestick Park. https://pinterest.com/pin/96405248245372354/

I’ve got a good one for you…My brother and his best friend, an ammature photographer, took pictures from the field.He was the bat boy for the giants and his dad was employed by them. My brother just gave one to my best friend who went to that show for his birthday. I didn’t go as I knew there would be all that screaming…Ooops! All 4 are in this one. As far as I know these are the only photos ever taken from the field. Photographers and the press were not allowed down there. I wonder if they have any value? I’d post it but I promised I wouldn’t without his OK. Sorry.

It depends how good the photos are, but yes, they’ll be worth money. The best thing to do is take them to an auction house that does regular rock and pop memorabilia sales, and get one of their experts to provide a valuation. Sotheby’s, Bonhams or one of the other big names will be interested (assuming your brother’s friend wants to sell, of course).

And how lucky he was! I’d love to see the pics.

Hi Mark, whay could they say about them?. Did they really seems to be ready for stop touring?

Could you send me a copy of your Photo? Please tell me the name of your brother, so I can say this Picture is from ” “. Blessings.

Hi–were they anything like these ?

I have a 24″x36″, blue background poster of the event. Ringo and drums top left, George top right, both 10″x10″. Below, Paul on left, John on right, 15″x21″ inset…all photos black and white. At bottom, in large yellow print, “THE BEATLES”. Under that, in slightly smaller pink letters, “Last Concert August 29, 1966 San Francisco.” At bottom right corner, “BTL054” and “Litho in USA”. Anyone else ever seen this poster…any idea of worth?

I just found beatlesbible.com while searching value of Poster for the Beatles’ Last concert –San Francisco, Calif, Aug 29, 1966: I was surprised that it was not valued as high as I thought it would be…$ 55.46 Ebay 2017 I did a new search and found this..NOT surprised. https://auction.sixtiesposters.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=2943625

I love reading about this concert.

I was there at Candlestick for the last concert, having of course no idea it would be the last one; I had previously seen the Beatles at Hollywood Bowl in 1964 and at the Cow Palace in San Francisco (twice) in 1965. The Candlestick Park concert by by far not on par with the previous ones I had attended. The Beatles were so far away, behind a wire fence, so I could barely see them from the grandstand, and couldn’t hear them either because of all the screaming! And it was cold as ice out there, the wind blowing. Alas I’m glad I was there!

Do you remember Lennon playing the opening chords for “In My Life”… Man I wished that was on tape, the never played that song live. I’m always hoping sometime during abbey road recordings they played that song one time

I’m with you always wanted to hear that. Apparently Paul did his best Little Richard yell ever during that Sally and of course the tape cuts out ?

It’s weird that Ringo (supposedly) said that about John, when it was GEORGE who said he’d had enough. He hated flying and they almost got killed when an engine caught fire on one flight during that tour. He said, “After this gig, I’m no longer a Beatle”…and that at least got the all thinking about it for sure.

On the one hand, one can be surprised that the final Beatle concert did not sell-out…on the other hand, consider lousy weather, crummy sound system, and the Fab Four performing an 11 song set, I’d say those not attending did not miss much, outside of the historic significance.

The low attendance was due to John Lennon’s stupidity remark he made recently about Jesus. A lot of people were not too thrilled about that. Had nothing to do with the weather, no idea how horrible the sound system would be prior to going.

Seems hard to believe that a Beatles concert couldn’t come close to a sell-out, no matter how bad the venue is. Was the promoter (Tempo Productions) a minor company? Or was the concert not promoted well enough in advance to allow for more tickets to be sold? Imagine if Bill Graham had promoted The Beatles. A concert like that would’ve sold out very quickly!

I was 9 years old and my father took me and my little brother to see them…this was their last live show until Abby Road on the roof…I remember two things…girls screaming and jelly beans everywhere…i believe I even saw girls underwear flying around…I asked my father why he was taking us…there wasn’t much money so I knew this was something special.. He told ,me and .brother….This will be the only chance we’ll have to see them together. Things are getting crazy I don’t think they will tour anymore. Vietnam was starting to get big and civil right protests were abound…pretty perceptive the old guy was…

I knew we were seeing something really special just didn’t know how special it was…even though we could barely hear over the girls screaming…. John and George Thank you and RIP you left us way too soon… Paul and Ringo Keep on rockin’ in the free world!!!! Thank you for sharing your lives with us a providing so many happy memories and times!!!

I was at that concert. Didn’t realize how important it was. I was in the Navy stationed at Alameda Naval Air Station. Through special services we got our tickets FREE. Does anyone else remember that when they left the stage they went into an armored car? I can still picture them on stage. What a fabulous memory.

Yes, because of all the crazy fans grabbing at them like in a Hard Day’s Night. Sometimes people really act like animals. And you know what? The Beatles are just people.

I co emceed that final concert with Gene….neither of us had any idea it would be their last. What a night in musical history and a night none of us will ever forget

I was there too Johnny—you were known as the Baron of the Bay as I remember—and I still have my $6.50 ticket, beaten up as it is. I also remember you on either Shindig or Hullabaloo. Long time ago…

P.S. someone mentioned the rival radio station. It was KFRC AM 610. KYA had an FM station as well, KOYT, but the frequency I do not remember. What I do remember is that it was on KOYT that I heard “Strawberry Fields Forever” for the first time.

Hi John S. After a little research, it seems that KEWB used the Top 40 format up until 1966 when it was sold. KFRC began using that format in 1966. It’s odd that KEWB gave it up at the height of the Beatles fame. They must have been offered a deal they couldn’t refuse. Oddly, I couldn’t find a lot of information on the history of KYA at that time but we all know how popular it was.

KEWB had been sold by Crowell-Collier Broadcasting to Metromedia and the new owners wanted to change the format. As KEWB changed to KNEW, KFRC began their run at Rock and Roll in the Bay Area.

I was 10, My aunt and uncle was leaving for London, mom and dad said my brother and I where going to the airport to say good by, Did not want to go but this is my story, Arrived there to see all these girls screaming, we where following our parents to an area of the airport that was under construction, all first class passengers where there, My aunt and uncle and yes George, Paul, John and Ringo, I wonder if they remember me or even this requirement due to the crowded airport, yes I was the last to see this group together in this country. P.S. Uncle and aunt said they where 4 of the rudest bastards they ever met. (Remember they spent the flight time between states and London together, They where Mr. and Mrs. Jack Hickey) Should would like to shake Paul’s hand as the last to say good by in 1966. Back then the older people didn’t like long hair or load music, and 4 young men who had fame felt they could say and do anything of course, FAME and YOUTH, even today, can cause trouble along with lack of respect for others, as we have seen. P.S. Broke my first ankle wearing Beatle Boots…….Remember……..

I was at that concert too – 11 years old. My father took me and my friend (who got lost in the crowd!) I remember the roar of the crowd, the excitement, the anticipation, wondering when the Beatles were going to come out on the field, and the decoy car that drove around and around on the field–everyone thought the Beatles were going to jump out of the car, and of course they didn’t. The screaming was so loud we couldn’t hear a thing but it didn’t matter. I was madly in love with George at that time. Even seeing the band from a distance was thrilling. I’ll always love my dad for taking me to that concert.

I was there. Fifteen years old…on my first date with a girl named Cheri. My Parents drove us. I still have the ticket stub & the memories. I even stole a kiss off my date.

Years later in 1969, I was in London & made my way to EMI Studios where The Beatles recorded….right on the blvd. Abbey Road. I ended up meeting Paul, George,Ringo & their producer George Martin. I was eighteen… and have to admit…quite a thrill. I remember where I was & the exact moment when I heard The Beatles from a little hand held transistor radio for the first time.

Very cool. Did you meet them in the summer? That’s when they were recording “Abbey Road”.

You are thinking of the Cow Palace as being in Daly City, which it is. Candlestick Park/Point is within the Bayview District of the City of San Francisco.

Yes, you are absolutely right. I vuess as we get older we tend to forget. I loved the Cow Palace too, saw serveral groups there too. The Monkees, The Cowsills, The Association, and Spanky and Our Gang. What a time it was.

Read recently that the playlist for ’66 Tour didn’t include any songs from the 2 latest LPs (Revolver, Rubber Soul), being so studio- production oriented, versus the lame concert venue PA systems of the time. Not to mention audience expectations being 3-4 years behind the reality of the Beatle’s (& George Martin / Geoff Emerick’s) creative arc.

They did play if I needed someone and Nowhere man, both from Rubber Soul. No song from Revolver was ever performed live by The Beatles.

If I Needed Someone and Nowhere Man were both on the UK version of Rubber Soul, but not on the US version. In the US both of these songs appeared on the Yesterday and Today album.

According to this article there was a reason only 25,000 of the 42,500 seats were filled. I’m not sure I’ve read this before but, according to Raechel Donahue (wife of the late KYA DJ Tom Donahue, who co-managed Tempo Productions), the City of San Francisco’s Parks and Recreation Department only licensed the show for 25,000 tickets, not allowing any tickets for the bleachers to be sold.

Provided her memory is right, despite the thousands of empty seats, every ticket was sold.

I wonder whether this explains some of the seemingly low attendances at some of 1966 US shows, that local authorities were limiting how many thousands of screaming girls they wanted to cope with?

I was there that foggy night. What a thrill !!! I’m 62 now so must have been 13 or 14 at the time, Frankie D. and I rode the bus from Sacramento and took a cab to the concert. You couldn’t hear anything but girls screaming….

I was lucky to have a good seat stage right with my two best friends (who are BTW still so) We could see thier facial expressions clearly. The most amazing memory I have is that when Paul sang Yesterday there were only two girls screaming in the intire stadium. We could actually HEAR the music!

I saw them earlier on the same tour, at Shea Stadium (excuse me, at Che Stadium) in NYC. Yes, the screaming girls…and boys. The Ronettes (not the Shirelles) could have headlined in New York. The Cyrkle began with the intro of “Red Rubber Ball” but turned it into their followup song, “Turn Down Day.” Of course I had no idea that it was the Beatles’ final tour. I was impressed that they attempted to tune their guitars between songs. And that they did their current single, “Paperback Writer,” despite how complex the recorded harmonies were. It’s a night I will remember forever and ever. Thanks, my Fab friends. I still squee when “Please Please Me” comes on the radio!

Hey I stumbled onto this site by chance. To see if their were any interest and value to an old Suite Case full of Teen Magazines, News Paper Clippings, Published Photo’s etc.etc. From a Teen Collector back in the Day. I am truly Blown Away about how to date So Many People are still impacted by this Event. I had a very close friend recently pass away that was at the Show. She took Very Detailed Notes and wrote a 40 page account off what took place thru her eyes. She had kept all items related to Event from Ticket Stub to the Hand Held AM Radio, Binoculars, etc. As a matter of fact I think she kept every News Article and Magazine ever produced about The Boys. My Friend went on to become a High School English Teacher for 28 years.(as well as other accomplishments ) I am wondering if their is an interest in all this paperwork or even possibly making into a short book for all to enjoy. She would have loved to be able to have shared her account and possibly impact a few people thru her eyes. Rest in Piece my Friend !

hope you got some offers if pre 1967,; 40 page account would be way cool!

Not sure if you still have all the memorabilia or not, as it’s two years since you posted this. The description of your friend sounds just like me! I was another Beatlemaniac from the day they touched down in NYC in February of 1964. I collected everything there was to collect from newspaper articles, fan magazines, Beatles dolls and models, to tennis shoes and pencil cases. I saw them at the Cow Palace on August 31, 1965, and at Candlestick Park at the same concert your friend attended. I lost most all of my memorabilia in a fire back in 1972, and it still hurts to think about it. I’ve managed to purchase a few pieces of things over the years, but will never be able to replace everything I lost. Do you still have it? If so, I’m very interested in it. I’d treasure it just as much as your friend did.

I was 12 years old when my mom got tickets for me and my 14 year old brother to go see the Beatles at Candlestick. As soon as the Beatles came out everyone stood up which left me, and all other short people, at a disadvantage. There was a young lady in front of me, about 20 years old, who jumped and screamed for the whole show and she would occasionally turn and apologize to me. Finally a guy behind me grabbed me under the arm pits and hoisted me up so my feet were on the back of my seat. I could see the Beatles. It truly was a crazy day.

I was there at Candlestick Park on Monday, August 29, 1966 for both shows by the Beatles. I had also been at the two previous shows when the Beatles played the Cow Palace. I was on John’s side of the stage about 20-30 yards back and I could see and hear everything perfectly. What amazed me, besides the hysterics of it all, was the fact that all the house lights were on and you could look around and see everyone. It’s no wonder the people behind couldn’t hear anything except the screaming, but for myself, being up-close was a big help. (I also remember some guy who came from the audience from behind the stage who got onto the stage and stole John’s cap right off his head. What a despicable person!) The set-up was quite different at Candlestick Park. Although they had a better PA than at the Cow Palace still they were quite far from the audience. It simply wasn’t possible for anyone in the audience to throw anything at them and hit their mark, they were too far away. On Monday, May 30, 1966 Paperback Writer/Rain was released and as the musical arranger and one of the lead singers for the Syndicate of Sound we taped the songs that afternoon and learned how to play them both so I was quite familiar with the chord progressions, the harmonies, etc. That evening of May 30th we appeared with the Charlatans and the headliners ‘The Lovin’ Spoonful’ at the Greek Amphitheatre (UC Berkeley). We performed both Paperback Writer & Rain along with other songs, including our hit, ‘Little Girl’. When the Beatles played Paperback Writer on Aug. 29th they did not do the same three part harmony opening which they sang on the record. It was close but… I was shocked they did not do the identical version. After the second show I drove over to the airport where their private plane was sitting on the tarmac and waved to them as they climbed the stairs, turned around and waved back at those of us who were lucky enough to be there to say good-bye. I feel extremely lucky to have been to four (4) live performances by the Beatles. It was an experience I shall never forget. Oh, and BTW, the Grateful Dead were in the audience at Candlestick Park too. John Sharkey 03152015

Hey, John; always loved your song “Little Girl”!!

Two shows? Was it not just one single show?

Is that John from Syndicate of Sound? You guys played at my Woodrow Wilson Junior High School graduation in June 64′ in San Jose. And you would be the drummer, and Ron Gonzalez was your bass player. I was lucky that i met him. Take care and God bless.

Does anyone know how many live performances did the Beatles do? I think it is about 580 since Ringo joined the group.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZqmEnjvS2M Here’s the audio recoding of the concert.

Does anyone remember the armored car that they left in?

The white armored car from Loomis is clearly visible on some of the film clips. It is a company that usually transport money.

Ive heard there’s a loud fart at the end of If I needed someone,

I was there.on leave from the army before going off to do my duty. It was cold as hell and windy. The sound actually blew away with the wind. Didnt care. It was the Beatles! went to duty happy. saw McCartney at the final Candlestick performance and again last night at Sacramento. John was right,they were bigger than Jesus.

I’m still wondering if anyone remembers the armored car.

Eight years before the lads’ last public gig, on Aug.29,1958,George Harrison joined Paul and John in the Quarrymen-I think they became the Beatles in 1961.

bill graham show would had been more exciting ,tickets sold bad because people new they were not very good live , not elvis he always sold out much better live, they were over rated.

Looks like I’m a little late to this party, but I happened upon this page by accident. I was 16 at this concert in 1966. My friend Kathy and I actually jumped from the top deck when some drunk guys offered to catch us (they did!). We both made it onto the field, nearly to the stage. I remember being carried off by four security guards, one on each limb. I didn’t see myself in Ron Howard’s movie. I was lucky to see The Beatles six times.

The artwork on the Candlestick concert was done by Wes Wilson. A scrap of it appears in the Beatles Anthology collage mural.

Peculiar, the very last song ever performed at a concert with the Beatles is cut right in a middle of a scream. Strange that they didn’t consider any proper recording if they knew that this was the last live performance, and that Brian Epstein still strictly prohibited any recording, as if he didn’t know.

I remember Emperor Gene Nelson and Johnny Holliday, growing up as a kid in the Bay Area back then. KYA had a rival station called KEWB, if I remember correctly, and when the Beatles had all the top spots on the pop chart they called themselves KEWBeatles. Back then the pop music was on AM radio but I remember some of the “alternative” rock music on FM. The first time I heard the Doors “Break on Through” and the Outlaws “Green Grass & High Tides Forever” was on one of those alternative stations, KSAN in San Francisco. All good but nothing tops the Beatles timeless music for me.

I also remember being at the Giants game In 2016 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their last show. It wasn’t at Candlestick Park (which has since been demolished) but at what’s now called Oracle Park in downtown SF. Candlestick was a horrible place to play baseball (or have a Beatles concert) because of it’s location. Willie Mays would be the home run king if he played where they do now. But at that 50th anniversary game I was amazed at how many young kids knew the Beatles lyrics by heart! I’ve also seen that phenomenon at shows I’ve seen by the tribute band, The Fab Four. Goes to show how timeless their music is. By the way Joe…I hope you got the donation I sent across the universe to you recently. It’s not much but I wanted to show my appreciation.

This event occurred 57 years ago today, eight days before my first high school day. After a mere 30 months+ atop the music world following their epic Feb.9,1964 Ed Sullivan Show appearance which bore Beatlemania,the lads (the eldest,Ringo,was 26,John was about six weeks from his 26th birthday,Paul 24 and George a mere 23) were fed-up with the music business (especially the “business” ; their manager,Brian Esptein,32,would succumb to a barbiturate overdose a year later,Aug.27,1967) and the professional and personal fissures which led to their Spring 1970 disbanding.

In a press release shortly before the Beatles’ final concert Brian Epstein mentioned a proposed third Shea Stadium concert to take place in 1967. After reading about their experiences touring in 1966 (not just the U.S. tour, but especially in the Philippines), we can only be grateful that the Beatles, even at the young age of the mid-20s, had the maturity to realize that the live concerts had to stop. Can you imagine what a ’67 tour would have been like, with the four of them hating every minute of it, security problems getting even worse, and still not able to play any of their recent material? If they couldn’t play anything from Revolver in ’66 they certainly couldn’t have played any of the Sgt. Pepper songs in ’67. And their decision to stop touring at the height of their popularity could not have been particularly easy, because there had to be considerable pressure on them to continue the live shows; a lot of people were still making money off of them.

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The story behind The Beatles' final live show on the Apple Studios rooftop

2 December 2021, 18:13

By Mayer Nissim

The Beatles famously played their final ever live performance on the rooftop of Apple Studios in 1969.

Listen to this article

The unconventional show has been heavily documented in Peter Jackson's incredible new Disney+ series Get Back .

The series showcases what led to the performance after a couple of weeks of writing songs that eventually were released as Let It Be .

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But what is the story behind the iconic rooftop concert?

When was The Beatles' final tour?

The Beatles ' previous final proper concert occurred on August 29, 1966 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

It was the last of 19 gruelling performances in 18 days, and it wasn't a particularly happy tour.

The band were plagued by controversy while visiting the USA. This was mainly due to John Lennon 's infamous remark about the band being "more popular than Jesus now", and also due to the Fabs Four's opposition to the Vietnam War.

The US was also tangled up in race riots that summer, and the Ku Klux Klan were among those protesting The Beatles after John's comments about Christianity.

Meanwhile, the band weren't enjoying their live performances either. Their intimate sets in Hamburg or the Cavern Club seemed a long time ago.

Now the band were performing in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans in stadiums, which sadly didn't have the technology required for the band to be heard above the deafening noise.

Watch the official trailer for The Beatles: Get Back on Disney Plus

Plus, at the time there was a terrifying lack of decent crowd control that threatened the safety of the group and audience members.

"That's it, then. I'm not a Beatle anymore," said George Harrison .

Thankfully, he reconsidered, but that was the end of The Beatles as a touring group. Instead, they focused on their studio output, releasing Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles (aka The White Album ), Abbey Road and Let It Be – plus plenty of singles and EPs.

But then there was one final public live performance.

When did The Beatles perform their rooftop concert?

On January 30, 1969, The Beatles performed an impromptu 42-minute gig from the rooftop of their Apple Corps headquarters at 3 Savile Row.

The original plan for the Get Back project was to get The Beatles performing on stage once again. However, George was still against the idea of a massive concert.

Still, Paul McCartney and Let It Be director Michael Lindsay-Hogg kept pushing for a live performance as being the main reason for the whole project.

As for what the concert could be, there was talk of The Roundhouse in Camden, the Royal Albert Hall, or the Tate gallery. Or how about an orphanage or Houses of Parliament, or a special show for dogs!

I've Got a Feeling Clip | The Beatles: Get Back | Disney+

When watching Peter Jackson's Get Back, you can see Lindsay-Hogg pushing hard for the group to take a cruise ship to Libya and play in the ruins of the amphitheatre in Sabratha, an ancient Roman city.

Although John and Paul were up for the idea ("It does make it like an adventure, doesn't it?), Ringo wasn't convinced and George flat out refused (calling the idea"very expensive and insane" and that he didn't want to be "stuck with a bloody big boatload of people for two weeks").

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This led to producer Glyn Johns, the man behind the desk for the sessions, to come up with an idea. Why not just put the show on right here?

Ringo had previously shown him the impressive views from the top of Apple HQ, and so he and Lindsay-Hogg told Paul about their idea. He was excited, and even George agreed.

Making of The Beatles: Get Back Featurette | The Beatles: Get Back | Disney+

Mal Evans was the man who got a stage built up on the roof, while Johns and assistant engineer Alan Parsons quickly went over to M&S to buy some tights for microphone shields.

The band weren't quite sure about the whole idea, before John Lennon famously delivered the line: "F**k it – let's go do it."

At 12.30pm, along with temporary Fifth Beatle Billy Preston , they did just that.

Abandoning plans to shoot footage from a helicopter, Lindsay-Hogg used six video cameras, including one over the road and a couple on the street below, to capture the response from passers-by on their lunchbreak.

Meanwhile, the sound was recorded on to a couple of eight-track recorders in the Apple basement studio.

What songs did they perform?

The full setlist of the performance was:

• "Get Back" (take one)
• "Get Back" (take two)
• "Don't Let Me Down" (take one)
• "I've Got a Feeling" (take one)
• "One After 909"
• "Dig a Pony"
• "I've Got a Feeling" (take two)
• "Don't Let Me Down" (take two)
• "Get Back" (take three)

While most of the people on Savile Row enjoyed the show, other local businesses and the Metropolitan Police weren't so happy.

Despite the best efforts of staff at Apple to keep them away, the party-poopers made their way upstairs.

"You've been playing on the roofs again, and you know your momma doesn't like it; she's going to have you arrested!" McCartney shouted as the cops burst onto the roof.

Evans switched off Lennon and Harrison's amps, but Paul, Ringo and Billy kept on playing, prompting George to switch his amp back on. Evans did the same for John's, helping the group to finish the third and final take of 'Get Back'.

"Get Back" Rooftop Performance | The Beatles: Get Back | Disney+

John famously quipped: "I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we've passed the audition."

The idea of Get Back becoming a completely live project never quite got off the ground, and the album that became Let It Be was infamously "reproduced for disc" by Phil Spector – much to the annoyance of Paul McCartney.

However, 'I've Got a Feeling' (take one), 'One After 909' and 'Dig a Pony' survived from the rooftop gig, and were used on the original Let It Be album.

Eventually, 'Get Back' (take three) ended up on Anthology 3 , while Paul's Let It Be... Naked project in 2003 used the rooftop tapes to get the authentic live sound, using a couple of takes of 'Don't Let Me Down' and 'I've Got A Feeling'.

The Rooftop Performance has been parodied many times ever since, by everyone from U2 to The Simpsons.

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The Beatles Performed Their Last Live Gig 50 Years Ago. Here’s the Story Behind the Rooftop Concert

I n January of 1969, the Beatles had just slogged their way through a soul-destroying month of misery in which John Lennon was wracked with heroin addiction , a frustrated George Harrison briefly quit the band and Paul McCartney worked ceaselessly as the group’s self-anointed cheerleader — so much so that, by the end of the month, his relentless good-natured energy was beginning to backfire and was driving the Beatles perilously close to the edge of disbandment.

But then, with one incredible stroke, the Beatles turned their lingering bad fortune on its head, dug deep, and for 42 minutes found the spark that had been eluding them in the form of their legend-making Rooftop Concert. They had stopped touring in 1966, but on a blustery day 50 years ago — Jan. 30, 1969 — they made history atop the Apple Corps office building in London’s garment district.

How, though, did they reach that redemptive moment?

The concert was part of the Get Back project, a two-hour television program that would showcase the Beatles rehearsing and performing — an idea that found its origins in a September 1968 session, when the band members mimed their way through promotional films for “Hey Jude” and “Revolution” under the direction of Michael Lindsay-Hogg. As they downed one convivial Scotch-and-Coke after another, the group reminisced about performing in front of a live audience.

“They were jamming and having a good time and having a better time than they thought they were going to have,” Lindsay-Hogg later stated. “So they sort of thought maybe there is some way they can do something again in some sort of performance way.”

That December, Paul asked engineer/producer Glyn Johns to oversee recording for the television program. Johns had recently performed the same role for the Rolling Stones’ Rock and Roll Circus program, which aired that same month. But the Beatles’ regular producer, George Martin, was still very present, appearing on the first day of filming and nearly every day afterward for at least some part of the day. He secured multitrack recording equipment for the Twickenham rehearsals and, once the whole show moved to the Apple building, had to set up a recording studio there from scratch in less than a week.

The Beatles’ failure to establish clear roles for each man put both Johns and Martin in awkward positions. But both men kept showing up and contributing. And when George Harrison asked Johns how they can get the sound of a “bad piano” on “For You Blue,” Martin came to the rescue by sliding sheets of newspaper between the hammers and the strings of the instrument to render the requested “bad” sound.

The Beatles thought they were setting out to prove — if only to themselves — that they were still a great live rock ‘n’ roll band. But in truth, they had found themselves engaging in an act of near-fatal nostalgia.

From the beginning , they were shaped and molded by Martin to be artists, rather than a working rock ‘n’ roll group, and they had not only played along, but had taken up Martin’s methods and rewritten the rules of the game. For this reason, the idea of “getting back” was utter folly for the Beatles, the band that had become identified with the ultimate in studio production on such landmark albums as Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and The Beatles (The White Album) . In stripping away this identity in the quest to create a television program about the band at its “purest,” they found to their slowly unfolding dread that they had nothing else with which to replace it. In the face of such a vacuum, collapse seemed inevitable.

Amid rising tensions, on Jan. 10, Harrison walked out, saying flatly, “See you ’round the clubs.”

When he met with his bandmates the afternoon of the 15th, the guitarist shrewdly demanded that the group shift the Get Back proceedings from cold, antiseptic Twickenham to their basement studio at Apple Corps. Working at their Savile Row office building from Jan. 21 through the end of that fateful month, the Beatles slowly but surely found their footing. Day after day, their focus improved until they had polished up arrangements for “Don’t Let Me Down,” “Get Back,” “For You Blue,” “Two of Us,” “I’ve Got a Feeling,” “Dig A Pony,” “Let It Be” and “The Long and Winding Road,” and successfully revived a song they had originally abandoned in 1963, “One After 909.”

But for Lindsay-Hogg, the band’s positive momentum didn’t solve a major problem for his documentary shoot. “I’m going crazy!” he remarked on Jan. 29, wondering aloud about how they might possibly wrap up the Get Back project. “At the moment, this documentary’s like No Exit ,” Lindsay-Hogg complained. “There’s a lot of good footage, but no pay-off.”

That afternoon, the “pay-off” appeared to have presented itself when Lindsay-Hogg, with McCartney and Beatles roadie Mal Evans in tow, stepped out onto the rooftop above Savile Row.

For assistant recording engineer Alan Parsons, the Jan. 30 concert made for “a magic, magic day” — even though the Rooftop Concert was in jeopardy until the very last moments. Indeed, even with their gear set up on the roof, the band considered scuttling their director’s plans. As Lindsay-Hogg later recalled, “We planned to do it about 12:30 to get the lunchtime crowds. They didn’t agree to do it as a group until about 20 to 1:00. Paul wanted to do it and George didn’t. Ringo would go either way. Then John said, ‘Oh [f—k], let’s do it,’ and they went up and did it.”

Rough and ragged, fraying at the seams and played to a largely unseen audience, the Beatles’ final set was held together by moments of sheer enthusiasm and delight. As they listened to playback of the recording immediately afterward, the Beatles were clearly energized and in good spirits. Martin suggested, hopefully, that this success could be a “dry run for something else.”

Instead, it would prove to be their last live concert ever, and the band broke up the next year. Though the Rooftop Concert demonstrated the Beatles’ ability to bring order out of chaos, in the end — as inspiring as it was — it didn’t point to a new beginning.

Jason Kruppa is a music historian and the host of the Producing the Beatles podcast, which explores the creation of the Beatles’ music from the perspective of producer George Martin. Dr. Kenneth Womack is the author of a two-volume biography of the life and work of Beatles producer George Martin. He is Dean of the Wayne D. McMurray School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Monmouth University.

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In their final public performance, The Beatles made history playing on top of the Apple Studios, becoming the most famous rooftop concert of all time.

Published on

Recorded as the B-side of “Get Back” on January 28, 1969, “Don’t Let Me Down” was first heard outside of the recording studio two days later, on January 30, when The Beatles played it a rooftop concert at Apple Studio in Savile Row, London. Written by John Lennon as an expression of his love for Yoko Ono, the song is heartfelt and passionate. As John told Rolling Stone magazine in 1970, “When it gets down to it, when you’re drowning, you don’t say, ‘I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,’ you just scream.”

Joining The Beatles at Apple Studios for both sides of the single was keyboard player Billy Preston , who gives the track such a beautiful, gentle feel, contrasting brilliantly with the intensity of John’s lead vocal. Billy was credited on the Apple single and it charted in America, but airplay of “Get Back” predominated and propelled the A-side to No.1 on the charts for five weeks. By comparison, “Don’t Let Me Down” got much less exposure. It’s another of those B-side gems that, with the passing of time, people have come to appreciate more.

During filming of the rooftop concert, The Beatles played “Don’t Let Me Down” right after doing two versions of “Get Back,” and it led straight into “I’ve Got A Feeling.” Michael Lindsay-Hogg directed The Beatles’ shoot, and both he and Paul McCartney met regularly at the tail end of 1968, while Hogg was directing The Rolling Stones ’ Rock And Roll Circus , to discuss the filming of The Beatles’ session in January. By the time that fateful Thursday came around, the penultimate day of January would be the last time The Beatles ever played together in front of any kind of audience.

On this video, it’s not the version of “Don’t Let Me Down” heard on the single but the version from the Let It Be… Naked album – a composite of both versions that were performed on the most famous rooftop concert of all time.

The Beatles rooftop concert featuring “Don’t Let Me Down” can be found on the Beatles’ 1s DVD/Blu-ray, which can be bought here .

20 Comments

Purple Cream

January 31, 2016 at 6:48 am

Love it have a listen to our version of The Beatles Classic Something which we licensed from Harris Songs now on itunes by Purple Cream thanks Vincent

January 31, 2016 at 6:50 am

Purple Cream performs Something by The Beatles https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/purple-cream/id838308621 licensed through Harris Songs on itunes

Kevin rutter

January 31, 2016 at 11:56 pm

Still awesome after all the years

Reginaldo Rodrigues

February 1, 2016 at 1:22 am

A melhor banda de todos os temmpos!

Licia Maria Salgado

February 1, 2016 at 1:37 am

Gostaria de fazer parte on line da melhor banda de todos os tempos. Cresci c eles, com sua música.

sebastiao lucena cartaxo

February 1, 2016 at 2:58 am

O melhor de todos os tempos. Não haverá mais um outro Beatles.

Marcus Burrows

February 1, 2016 at 3:30 am

I was eight and off school with some bug or another. My father had to take me to his work because my mother was still in college. I looked out of the office window and asked my father what was going on out there on the roof of a nearby building. His reply was something along the lines if ‘ scruffy yobs should get a job..’ It was some years before I found out what I had been watching. The appearance of the police was quite exciting for such a young witness!

February 1, 2016 at 3:57 pm

Don’t believe you pal. Must think we were born yesterday.

February 2, 2016 at 1:31 am

Wish I was you.

saint-lager

February 1, 2016 at 9:25 am

Que de souvenirs! I love the BEATLES!!!!

Marcelo Jenisch

February 1, 2016 at 3:40 pm

The Beatles! Inesquecível, a melhor banda de todos os tempos.

February 1, 2016 at 3:59 pm

Miss them years when thinks we’re cool

Robert Hall

February 1, 2016 at 6:10 pm

I am looking for the whole dvd or whatever of “LET IT BE”AND THE DVD AND CD OF NUMBERS1

February 1, 2016 at 9:10 pm

I was born in ’64 had not listened to the Beatles until I was 10 years during revival over the radio. From that the on, I never stop loving their music.

February 2, 2016 at 12:02 am

Wow. You dont see many concert with the Beatles with their hair long. Love their music.

Wish I had been you!!!

pedro perez

February 2, 2016 at 2:24 pm

Jamás habrá otra banda como The Beatles, Calidad my friend.

July 3, 2017 at 9:15 pm

Don’t Let Me Down features Billy Preston keyboards very prominently. They should have given him more than that 1 second of video time you saw early in the recording.

January 31, 2019 at 12:17 am

la mejor musica de todos los tiempos…

January 31, 2020 at 1:58 am

The isolated vocals on DGMD prove that no other group could touch the voices of both Lennon and McC.

Paul’s performance is amazing.

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Remembering The Beatles Last Performance

Fifty years ago, The Beatles climbed to a London rooftop and performed together for the first time in over two years. No one knew it then, but this would also be their final performance together.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Fifty years ago today, the Beatles climbed to a London rooftop and performed together for the first time in more than two years.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BEATLES: (Singing) Jojo left his home in Tuscon, Ariz.

SHAPIRO: It was a small concert, just the Beatles, keyboardist Billy Preston, a film crew and a small audience huddling in the cold.

BEATLES: (Singing) Get back, Jojo.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

No one knew it then, but this would also be their final performance together.

KEN MANSFIELD: When you were on the roof, it was like something is happening here. I don't know what it is, but something magic's happening here.

KELLY: That's record executive Ken Mansfield. He was part of that audience that day, and he memorialized the experience in his book "The Roof: The Beatles' Final Concert."

SHAPIRO: A film crew was documenting the production of the group's album "Let It Be." They'd hoped to film the Beatles before a big audience in an exotic location, but at the time, the members of the band weren't getting along. Filming the final scene on the roof was a compromise.

MANSFIELD: This was a time of dissension, if we should use that word. Somebody said, we just need to go up on the roof. This was just an easy answer to just - to get it over with.

KELLY: Turns out that was exactly what they needed. Mansfield says on the cold roof that day, all the band's tension melted away.

BEATLES: (Singing) Get back. Get back to where you once belonged. Get back. Get back. Get back to where you once belonged.

MANSFIELD: Well, this is one single moment that is something I'll treasure forever - is, they started playing. And John looked over at Paul, or Paul looked over at John. And I was just, like, 4 to 6 feet away. And I saw this look on their face. It was like, you know what? This is us. It doesn't matter what's going down and all the problems and everything. This is who we are. We're mates. We've been together for so many years. And we are a good rock 'n' roll band, and that's what we're doing right now. And, man, they start having a good time. You know, John's throwing out these one-liners, and they're just rocking out.

BEATLES: (Singing) Don't let me down. Don't let me down.

MANSFIELD: I wrote in the book that they came up on the roof without a sound check, but they walked back down with a soul check.

SHAPIRO: They also walked back down after the police broke up the performance because of noise complaints. Mansfield says the whole thing took a while to sink in.

MANSFIELD: When we left the roof that day, nobody talked to each other and then next morning still couldn't quite figure out what I'd experienced. I didn't realize it was going to be one of the historical moments in rock 'n' roll, but I knew something had happened.

KELLY: Historic because, again, it was the Beatles' last live performance as a group. They had conquered the world, and they went out with an ironic line from John Lennon.

JOHN LENNON: I would like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves. I hope we passed the audition.

SHAPIRO: Fifty years later, safe to say they did.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

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The Beatles' 'Get Back': The timeline that led them to that famous rooftop concert

A look at the events leading up to the beatles' last live performance: their unforgettable rooftop concert on london's savile row in 1969..

This new Beatle docuseries required director Peter Jackson to sift through nearly 60 hours of previously unseen video and 150 hours of unheard audio taken from the band's 1969 studio sessions. The Beatles were working on music for their final albums, "Abbey Road" and "Let It Be," and filming a documentary with director Michael Lindsay-Hogg at the same time.

While the band was facing considerable pressure to write, rehearse and record 14 new songs and prepare for their first live concert in more than two years, this documentary showcases the warmth and creative genius that defined the Fab Four. 

Jackson said the film would capture "the ultimate fly-on-the-wall" experience that Beatles fans have long dreamed about.  “It’s like a time machine transports us back to 1969, and we get to sit in the studio watching these four friends make great music together," the "Lord of the Rings" director said in a statement.

"I felt so fortunate, in the middle of the pandemic, the most depressing time in my life, I’d get in the car and go into the cutting room and spend the day with The Beatles laughing and having a great time," Jackson told USA TODAY. "I was fortunate to have the Fab Four with me to keep me cheery all the time. It turned out to be a fantastic pandemic project from an emotional point of view."

The documentary features, for the first time in its entirety, The Beatles' last live performance as a group: the unforgettable rooftop concert in London.

"The Beatles: Get Back” rolls out as a three-part documentary series (Thursday, Friday and Saturday) streaming exclusively on Disney+.

Aug. 29, 1966

The Beatles perform what they consider their last live show at San Francisco's Candlestick Park. It marks the end of a four-year period dominated by almost nonstop touring, more than 1,400 concert appearances internationally. It isn't announced as their final show.

June 2, 1967

Having chosen to concentrate on their recording career, The Beatles release "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." "Sgt. Pepper" is often cited as the first “concept album” and as the inspiration for other great pop stars of the '60s. 

Aug. 27,1967

Manager Brian Epstein is found dead from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills. John Lennon later says Epstein's death is a turning point in the band's career.

Nov. 27,1967

The band releases its album "Magical Mystery Tour."  

February 1968

Interest in meditation and spirituality leads The Beatles to visit India for a meditation training program led by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The band writes 20 songs while there. 

The Beatles leave EMI and start their own company, Apple Corps.

November 25, 1968

After the trip to India, the band releases a self-titled double album known as "The White Album."

Jan. 13, 1969

The "Yellow Submarine" soundtrack is released.

Jan. 30, 1969

The Beatles perform an unannounced concert for 42 minutes on the rooftop of their Apple headquarters at 3 Savile Row in central London's office and fashion district.

SOURCE  USA TODAY, Disney+, Setlist.fm, Billboard

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55 Years Ago: The Beatles Perform Live for the Last Time

"I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we passed the audition."

Outside of   Johnny Rotten saying, "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" at  Sex Pistols ' final concert , no other group ended its history as a live act with such fitting words. And they were spoken by John Lennon from a London rooftop after the Beatles last-ever live performance on Jan. 30, 1969.

The Get Back  project, which morphed into Let It Be , was an attempt by the Beatles to return to their roots as a pure rock n' roll band after the studio-heavy work of the previous three years. The idea was to film the band rehearsing and recording the songs, with a concert marking their first performance since saying goodbye to the road in San Francisco on Aug. 29, 1966.

By this point in their career, the Beatles hated each other. The Let it Be  film that eventually emerged doesn't show a band rediscovering itself so much as falling apart, a far cry from the smiling mop-tops that took over the world only five years prior. George Harrison even quit during the rehearsals at Twickenham Film Studios earlier in the month but returned a few days later.

Most of the animosity was directed at Paul McCartney , who was going through a particularly creative period and was trying to drum up enthusiasm among his bandmates, but often came across as bossy.

READ MORE: 12 Tracks Worth Keeping From the Beatles' 'Anthology' Series

All sorts of locations were suggested for the concert -- everywhere from a London pub, to a Greek amphitheater, to a volcano . But these ideas involved too much work, a sign of the band's unwillingness to spend any more time around each other than necessary. On Jan. 29, they agreed to move their equipment from the basement studios in Apple Corps' headquarters at 3 Savile Row up to the roof the next day.

The Beatles' crew spent the morning setting up the gear and running cables down to the basement. To cope with the January wind, engineer Alan Parsons was sent out to buy ladies' stockings to put over the microphones to his considerable embarrassment. By lunchtime, everything was ready to go.

Watch the Beatles Perform 'Don't Let Me Down'

For all the acrimony surrounding the band at the time, the performance finds the Beatles doing what they were trying to force throughout the month. The group - with their old friend Billy Preston on electric piano - sounds happy to be playing together.

"We've had a request from Martin Luther," John quipped after the first attempt at "Get Back," recalling, no doubt, the many afternoon sessions they played at Liverpool's Cavern Club. He and Paul occasionally exchange looks between them that put aside all the bitterness between the two.

What Did the Beatles Play at the Rooftop Concert?

After a second stab at "Get Back," they moved on to "Don't Let Me Down" and "I've Got a Feeling." Next was "One After 909," a song Lennon and McCartney wrote in their early days, and "Dig a Pony." Both performances were released on the Let It Be  album.

By this point, the music coming from the sky brought the neighborhood to a halt. Despite the cold and damp, crowds gathered along the street, neighbors opened up their windows and cars stopped on the streets. Of course, not everybody was happy with the noise, and the police were called to intervene.

Unaware of what was going on below them, the Beatles kept playing. Second attempts at "I've Got a Feeling" and "Don't Let Me Down," and a third run-through of "Get Back," were made. By this time, however, the police had arrived. On their orders, Harrison's and Lennon's amplifiers were turned off mid-song, but the musicians turned them back on in time to finish the song.

" You've been out too long, Loretta ," McCartney, seeing the policemen, improvised in the spoken section. " You've been playing on the roofs again, and that's no good / 'Cause you know your Mommy doesn't like that / She gets angry / She's gonna have you arrested !"

READ MORE: Beatles White Album Songs Ranked

Seconds later, the song came to a halt. McCartney thanks Maureen Starkey, whose red coat her husband, Ringo Starr , was wearing. Lennon says his famous line and the Beatles' final performance came to an ignominious end.

Approximately half of the 42-minute concert wound up in the original Let It Be  film. A new cut released in 2021, titled The Beatles: Get Back and helmed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson , featured previously unreleased footage, including the entire rooftop performance .

Beatles Albums Ranked

Gallery Credit: Michael Gallucci

More From Ultimate Classic Rock

The Beatles: New documentary tells the story of band's last ever live performance on a rooftop in London

Get Back is a three-part series which is based around 56 hours of film that has remained unseen for half a century.

Arts and entertainment correspondent @SkyKatieSpencer

Friday 26 November 2021 09:55, UK

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

The Beatles' last ever live performance, up on the rooftop of 3 Savile Row, is a legendary moment in music history and an event that Peter Jackson's new three-part Disney documentary charts.

Based on around 56 hours of film that for 50 years remained hidden within Apple's vaults, the series also gives an in-depth insight into the recording sessions for their album Let It Be.

Having mused over where they'd first perform some of the tracks, the band joke about being arrested. In the footage, Paul McCartney says: "We should do the show in a place we're not allowed to do it, getting forcibly ejected."

But, a young policeman who was there that day, has told Sky News the rooftop gig wasn't halted because nobody "knew what to do".

Ken Wharfe was 21 at the time. He'd been on traffic duty when he received a call from his "grumpy old sergeant" asking if he could hear a "dreadful noise".

"We walked up Regent Street and suddenly it became clear I could hear the music Get Back just sort of flowing over the rooftops of Soho."

When he arrived on Savile Row, there was a party atmosphere in the street.

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• The Beatles

Mr Wharfe said: "I remember thinking I needed a piece of this action, so I literally went into number three and ascended the stairs. I remember…Ringo Starr in that sort of tangerine coat and I thought 'this is the best thing that's ever going to happen to me in the police service'.

"None of us really knew what to do….because there wasn't a problem, there wasn't a crime, at worst it was noise but it was a pleasant noise."

While the band might have expressed a desire to be dragged off stage by police, Mr Wharfe says he and his colleagues were too busy enjoying the best seats in the house.

"I think that one or two of my colleagues, you know, had to make a stand but the bulk of us, we were more interested in actually getting a better viewpoint and listening!

"It was the last concert that The Beatles ever performed so, of all the things that I did in my career, I have to say this is the one thing that I remember more than anything else because it was just an amazing occasion."

In Beatles mythology, so it goes that the Let It Be recording sessions were fractious and unpleasant.

However, the new footage shows it wasn't anywhere near as miserable as we'd been led to believe as the band can be seen laughing and enjoying making music.

Sky News has spoken to one of the band's sound engineers, Dave Harries, who was also there that day having helped them record the album.

Subscribe to the Backstage podcast on Apple Podcasts , Google Podcasts , Spotify , Spreaker

"They were so good, so talented," he says. "Their harmonies, you know, all the harmonies were brilliant."

Mr Harries believes the only real conflict stemmed from the boys' frustration at the recording process.

"They weren't very happy with the fact that the studio wasn't completed and running properly…that was a shame because they deserved better."

The documentary is a compelling insight and one that finally allows every Beatles fan the ending they'd always wanted - four young friends who might be ready to go their separate ways but who aren't at each other's throats but who are laughing and enjoying making music together.

Get Back is out on Disney+ now.

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Relive The Beatles’ Surprise Final Concert, Performed On A Rooftop On This Day In 1969 [Video/Audio]

On this day in 1969, The Beatles played their last ever live concert. However, this was not your typical farewell show, as 54 years ago today,  John Lennon ,  Paul McCartney ,  George Harrison , and  Ringo Starr (joined by keyboardist  Billy Preston ) staged an impromptu outdoor set on the roof of Apple headquarters in London.

This concert experience came toward the end of recording what would be their final album  Let It Be . The legendary 40+ minute set provided time for five songs to be played in perfection: “Get Back”, “Don’t Let Me Down”, “I’ve Got A Feeling”, “One After 909” and “Dig A Pony”. Some songs required multiple takes, though few noticed.

Related: Lake Street Dive Covers The Beatles’ “Don’t Let Me Down” On A Rooftop For Halloween [Watch]

While no one was expecting it, this was the most appropriate way for the foursome to close the book. Without hyping up another room of screaming fans, they did what they did best—they played music. It didn’t matter who heard. In fact, the people who did hear the music were perplexed by what was even happening as they walked about their automatic existences, not knowing that these songs would be sung for generations to come. The most tangible memory of this fateful performance lives on through this footage, which is featured in Peter Jackson ‘s The Beatles: Get Back documentary.

The Untold Truth Of The Beatles' Final Public Performance

The last few years have given us some of music's greatest swan songs. Both David Bowie and Leonard Cohen released critically acclaimed LPs around the time of their deaths that on reflection look to have been perfectly timed meditations on mortality and legacy — final statements by great artists looking to write their own epitaphs. Some bands perform farewell tours, neatly bowing out before circumstances make them unable to continue. Most however, lacking such foresight, are unable to finish things so gracefully.

In the case of The Beatles  – still to this day considered to be the greatest rock-and-roll band of all time — the break-up was famously acrimonious and chaotic. Long-running tensions within the band and the gradual breakdown in communication in the years following the death of their manager Brian Epstein meant that the surprise announcement of Paul McCartney's leaving the group in 1970 led to years of bitter feuding in the press — a very disappointing coda to a glittering seven-year run of peace, love, and innovation.

However, their final gig on Jan. 30, 1969, atop the roof of The Beatles' Apple Corps offices in London's Saville Row, has come to have an afterlife all its own and is considered today a symbol of the band's enduring artistry and a glimpse into what might have been if circumstances had been different. Here is the story of the Beatles' last ever public performance.

The Beatles were planning a return to live performance

The rooftop gig was the first live public performance by the world's biggest band in three years. According to Rolling Stone ,  The Beatles decided to move away from live shows in 1966, following a long and strenuous cycle of world tours that began during the advent of Beatlemania in 1963, and which culminated in a series of very public blunders that put the Fab Four in very real danger.

In July, the Fab Four were touring Asia when they were perceived to have snubbed the first family of the Philippines, leading to an outpouring of anger that saw the public, including people who had been fans up until that point, turn on the band. Under threat from militant nationalists, The Beatles were forced to give up their tour earnings in exchange for being allowed to leave the country. This incident was then followed by a calamitous tour of the United States, during which John Lennon drew the wrath of American Christians by declaring the band "bigger than Jesus," attracting death threats and prompting the burning of Beatles records in southern states.

Exhausted, the band finally agreed to quit life on the road. But the end of touring was never envisaged to be a permanent move for the group, and the Get Back project, spearheaded by Paul McCartney , seemed like the perfect opportunity to reintroduce the group to the fine art of live performance.

The Beatles were a band in turmoil

Paul McCartney's planned Get Back project was intended to do exactly what the title suggested — return the band to their roots after a long period of studio experimentation. However, everything didn't go according to plan, with Beatles Bible referring to it as "the darkest period of the Beatles' recording career."

The band had just completed strenuous work of the sprawling double LP The Beatles (known affectionately among fans as "The White Album"), a record that had seen tensions among the band members increase dramatically, often to the point of the members recording in different studios from each other. While George Harrison was becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of interest in his own songwriting from his bandmates and John Lennon becoming more distant as he retreated into his own private world with Yoko Ono (under the growing influence of heroin), McCartney began to assert greater creative control, envisioning a project in which the band's rehearsal sessions would be recorded with the intention of putting out a TV special and eventually returning to live performance.

As Ultimate Classic Rock notes, the sessions were dominated by infighting, as Harrison especially took exception to McCartney's perceived bossiness. As a result, Harrison briefly left the group in January 1969. The project was eventually shelved and instead formed the basis for 1970's  Let It Be  but not before The Beatles' rooftop performance, which was originally planned as a potential finale for the Get Back film.

The rooftop was chosen for its simplicity

Most bands looking to capture the essence of their live shows look to hit the road and take off to some exotic or prestigious location. Pink Floyd's most famous live film was recorded in an empty ancient Roman amphitheater in Pompeii in 1972. The Beatles rejected such indulgences but not for the sake of artistic integrity or anything so high-minded as that.

The fact was, the Fab Four were sick of each other, per Ultimate Classic Rock . Though they had long put an end to touring by 1969, their artistic differences and inner power struggles were becoming more pronounced. Most critics today agree that The Beatles' troubles were a result of the vacuum left by the loss of their long-term manager Brian Epstein , who had tragically died of an overdose in 1967, aged just 32.

According to Ultimate Classic Rock , filming locations mulled by the group included a Greek amphitheater, the Sahara desert, and, more prosaically, a London pub, but the roof of their own offices was eventually settled upon so that the foursome didn't have to "spend any more time around each other than absolutely necessary," a sad state of affairs for a band who once sang about getting along with "a little help from [their] friends."

Billy Preston: the fifth Beatle

The Beatles' final public performance is notable for being one of the few times that the Fab Four were joined by another musician. In this case, it was Billy Preston, an organist and electric piano player who had met The Beatles all the way back in 1962, when he shared a bill with the band from Liverpool while on tour with rock-and-roll hero Little Richard. In the years that followed, Preston made a name for himself playing with such big names as Sam Cooke and Ray Charles and by the late 60s was known as one of the best in the business, and, according to The Washington Post , an all-round nice guy.

So it's no surprise that George Harrison, having met up with Preston again after a Ray Charles concert, invited the organist to join the band's troubled sessions, expecting him to have a calming effect and lessen the tensions between the four bandmates. Reportedly, Preston's presence did indeed help to quell the band's bickering, but, ultimately, not even the super-chilled Preston could halt the group's demise indefinitely. As well as the rooftop gig, Preston was involved in the Get Back/Let It Be sessions and also played organ on a number of songs on The Beatles' last-recorded LP, Abbey Road.

A freezing cold final Beatles performance

The Fab Four headed to the roof of their Apple Corps. offices on London's Savile Row at noon, where the gear for the surprise gig had already been set up. Along with the instruments and microphones, amps, and PA equipment, the crew had set up a rig connecting the gear to two 8-track recorders in the Apple basement, as well as video cameras to capture footage of the performance. But the most striking thing The Beatles noticed on the roof was that the London wind was, according to Mojo , absolutely freezing cold. It was, after, all, the end of January, and English weather isn't much to shout about at the best of times.

The Beatles simply weren't dressed for the weather. According to Beatles Bible , to help them perform in the penetrating cold, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr each borrowed ladies' coats, resulting in the iconic fur-coated look which makes footage of the gig instantly recognizable (although, to be honest, Starr's bright pink mac doesn't quite give off the same vibe as what Harrison and Lennon were rocking).

Paul McCartney performed the whole gig without a coat — but with a suit as finely cut as that, who could blame him?

George Martin didn't make the gig

As well as Brian Epstein, The Beatles owe much of their success to another, elder guiding hand — their longtime producer, George Martin , who, like Billy Preston and a small number of others, has attracted the title of the " fifth Beatle ." Martin, however, had the greatest claim to the name, having been involved with the band from the very beginning of their recording career and overseen many of the innovations in their recording practices that saw them transform from talented rock-and-roll practitioners into fully fledged popular music vanguards.

According to Britannica , Martin was a classically trained musician who, as well as producing their records, was also the one who suggested replacing their original drummer, leading to the arrival of Ringo Starr. Martin was still a big part of The Beatles in 1969, but his relationship with the band had grown strained, and his role in production had become more hands-off, especially during the Get Back sessions.

According to Mojo , the Beatles' great mentor was conspicuous by his absence among the small rooftop audience made up of the band's inner circle. Instead, he was in the basement, "worrying like mad if I was going to end up in Savile Row police station for disturbing the peace," he later claimed.

John Lennon's vulnerable infatuation

It is no secret that John Lennon 's attention wasn't fully on the band that made him a name by the end of the 1960s. His lack of interest around this time has been identified with the benefit of hindsight as one of the key factors in the break-up of The Beatles . Yoko Ono, meanwhile, has attracted genuine scorn from generations of Beatles fans, which, thinking sensibly, is quite unfair. Lennon had been strong enough to make his own decisions throughout his career, and to think that he was being manipulated in some way by his new love doesn't quite ring true. Rather, it is more true to say that Lennon was genuinely infatuated with Ono, and that he found himself spread too thin (especially when drugs became a problem).

But whatever Lennon's role in the Beatles' demise, it must be said that his love for Ono gave us some of his most tender and vulnerable songs. One particularly breathtaking composition, "Don't Let Me Down," a close-to-perfect paean to Lennon's new love, is especially memorable for its taking central stage in the rooftop concert set-list, according to Beatles Bible . The rendition is note, perfect, and the subsequent recording clipped, clean, and clear. And with Ono sitting just feet away from the songwriter, listening to it today is a particularly warm experience.

A classic performance

The long legacy of The Beatles' studio recordings perhaps gives modern audiences a false impression of their live performance style. Though the Fab Four were consummate musicians, they were far from predictable. Starting with their raw rock-and-roll shows in Hamburg and Liverpool's famous Cavern Club and concluding with ragged stadium tour dates where the band could barely hear their own instruments, the closely knit group became known for inter-song patter and surprise snatches of unexpected songs that punctuated their renditions of their polished material. 

According to Beatles Bible , the gig began with a quick rehearsal of "Get Back," which, after some applause, John Lennon claimed was requested by Martin Luther. The band reprised the song and delivered a tighter version, followed by Lennon's own "Don't Let Me Down." The next song was "I've Got A Feeling," which became a roaring favorite on their final studio release, Let It Be (Lennon reportedly exclaimed "Oh my soul!" as the song ended). Further Let It Be favorites "One After 909" and "Dig A Pony" followed. In total, the gig comprised nine takes of five new Beatles songs, capturing crisp performances of the material that sounded as immaculate as anything in their back catalog, surrounded as they were by immortal snatches of chatter and adlibs, many of which would be included in the final studio release of Let It Be.

A mixed audience reaction

Of course, the sound of the world's most famous band performing atop a building in the middle of England's most populous city wasn't solely reserved for the small coterie of friends and colleagues assembled on the Apple Corps. roof. The amps carried the sound of the Fab Four down to the streets below, where pedestrians met the noise initially with bewilderment, and, once they realized from where the sound was originating, a range of responses that in many ways paint a picture of competing social beliefs in England at the tail end of the 1960s.

Many, of course, greeted the sound of The Beatles' first live concert in three years — and would you believe it, it was free! — with shock and joy. Crowds began to form on the streets below, as the band worked their way through their set of fresh, new tunes, creating what the BBC described as a "party atmosphere."

But not everyone was pleased to hear The Beatles fill the London air with free music. A neighboring business owner, Stanley Davis, reportedly told reporters, "I want this bloody noise stopped, it's an absolute disgrace," while others said that a busy city street at lunchtime was neither the time nor the place to listen to world-beating rock and roll, according to Mojo . Even at the end of their career, The Beatles remained, as ever, divisive.

The Beatles' final performance was stopped by police

Metropolitan Police Officer Ken Wharfe was on duty in London Piccadilly at the time of the concert when he received a call. Wharfe told the BBC , "There was this crusty old Sergeant there on the phone who said; 'Can you hear that bloody noise lad.' And I said, 'Yeah it sounds like The Beatles,' not knowing at that point that they were on the roof, but everybody knows that the Beatles have their studios in Savile Row. He said to me, 'Look get your mate across the road and go and turn the noise down.'"

The police were reportedly concerned that the crowds of onlookers gathering to enjoy the free sound of The Beatles performing live in one of the busiest areas of central London would stop traffic and eventually cause a health and safety risk. Wharfe recalled that many people had also climbed onto their own office roofs to get a view of the band. Apple Corps. employees originally refused officers access to the building but acquiesced after being threatened with arrest.

As the police accessed the roof, the band knew their gig was going to be cut short. In the final song, a third take of "Get Back," Paul McCartney slyly ad libbed the following, "You've been playing on the roofs again, and that's no good, and you know your Mummy doesn't like that ... she gets angry ... she's gonna have you arrested! Get back!"

The final word from John Lennon

Though The Beatles wouldn't officially disband until April 10, 1970, the band's 1969 rooftop gig feels like their swan song thanks to the roundabout way that their final albums were released and the way in which recordings of the concert were later used.

The final album The Beatles recorded together was Abbey Road, which was completed in August 1969 and released in the United Kingdom only a month later, according to Beatles Bible , long after Paul McCartney's mooted Get Back project. Get Back, however, took Phil Spector months to turn it into what would become Let It Be, released after the band had publicly announced their split.

Though considered a classic today,  NME  described it at the time as "cheapskate epitaph, a cardboard tombstone, a sad and tatty end," with many — including McCartney himself — highly critical of Spector's perceived overproduction of some of the album's most tender songs, most notably the title track and McCartney's heartfelt "The Long and Winding Road."

However, one aspect of Spector's production has served to make the album a fitting finale to The Beatles' discography, as the producer deemed to close the album with the same sarcastic yet bittersweet line with which John Lennon brought the truncated rooftop performance to a close — "I would like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we've passed the audition."

It could have been fabulous...

Although The Beatles' final concert is now one of the definitive moments of their career, the results at the time were considered a disappointment. Footage from the concert was used as the finale of the Let It Be film in 1970, but in general, the film was greeted with a mixed response and, as the band had already split and descended into public feuding, memories of the 42-minute aborted concert on that freezing London rooftop were yet to generate warm feelings. Instead, the performance was just one of a series of things that had gone wrong for The Beatles in their final 18 months of terminal decline and stood as a reminder of what might have been if things had gone differently.

Ringo Starr, especially, was irritated the concert had ended up being cut short by the police and even claimed that he'd wished for a greater confrontation, according to Mojo  –  "I always feel let down about the police. When they came up I was playing away and I thought, 'Oh great! I hope they drag me off.' We were being filmed and it would have looked really great, kicking the cymbals and everything. Well, they didn't of course, they just came bumbling in: 'You've got to turn that sound down.' It could have been fabulous."

In 2021, Beatles fans will be treated to a deeper insight into final months of The Beatles, thanks to a new documentary, Get Back , directed by Peter Jackson.

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The Beatles

The story behind the beatles last ever live "rooftop" performance.

30 January 2024, 13:31

Peter Jackson stripped away guitar sounds to hear the honest conversations between members of The Beatles in ‘The Beatles: Get Back’

By Mayer Nissim

The full story behind how The Beatles played their last ever public live performance on the rooftop of Apple studios.

Listen to this article

The Beatles played their last proper concert on August 29, 1966 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

It was the last of 19 whirlwind performances in 18 days, and it wasn't a particularly joyous tour.

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The band were plagued by controversy Stateside. Partly because of John Lennon 's remark that the band were "more popular than Jesus now", partly because of the Fabs' opposition to the Vietnam War.

The US was also plagued by race riots that summer, and the Ku Klux Klan were among those protesting The Beatles after John's comments about Christianity.

Even ignoring that backdrop, the band weren't enjoying their live performances. The intimate, tight sets played back-to-back in Hamburg or the Cavern Club seemed long ago.

Now the band were playing to tens of thousands of screaming fans in stadiums that just didn't have the technology for the band to be heard above the din.

Watch the official trailer for The Beatles: Get Back on Disney Plus

Not to mention the terrifying lack of adequate crowd control that threatened the safety of the group and audience alike.

"That's it, then. I'm not a Beatle anymore," said George Harrison on the plane home.

Thankfully, he reconsidered, but that was the end of The Beatles as a touring band. They focused on their studio work, releasing Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles (aka The White Album ), Abbey Road and Let It Be – and plenty of singles and EPs around the edges.

But there was one more public live performance. On 30 January 1969, The Beatles performed an impromptu 42-minute gig from the rooftop of their Apple Corps headquarters at 3 Savile Row. And here's how it happened.

The original plan for the Get Back project was to get The Beatles back on stage as live performers. George though, was still very much against the idea of some massive concert.

Nevertheless, Paul McCartney and Let It Be filmmaker Michael Lindsay-Hogg still pushed for a live performance being central to the whole project.

There were all sorts of ideas during the sessions as to what that could be. Early on, there was talk of The Roundhouse in Camden, the Royal Albert Hall, or the Tate gallery.

Then there were the odder choices. An orphanage or Houses of Parliament, or a special show for dogs.

I've Got a Feeling Clip | The Beatles: Get Back | Disney+

Watching Peter Jackson's Get Back you see Lindsay-Hogg pushing incredibly hard for the group to take a cruise ship to Libya and play in the ruins of amphitheatre in Sabratha, an ancient Roman city.

While John and Paul were up for the idea ("It does make it like an adventure, doesn't it?) Ringo wasn't convinced and George flat out refused (he called the idea"very expensive and insane" adding that he didn't want to be "stuck with a bloody big boatload of people for two weeks").

So producer Glyn Johns, the original man behind the desk for the sessions, came up with an idea. Why don't we do the show right here? Well, not right here, but up on the roof.

Ringo had earlier shown him the great views from the top of Apple HQ, and so he and Lindsay-Hogg told Paul their idea. He was excited, and crucially even George agreed.

Making of The Beatles: Get Back Featurette | The Beatles: Get Back | Disney+

But even an impromptu show needs some preparation, and it was Mal Evans who got a stage built up on the roof, while Johns and his assistant engineer Alan Parsons made a quick hop to M&S to buy some tights for microphone shields.

Despite the prep, the band still weren't entirely sure about the whole crazy idea, before John Lennon piped up with the brilliantly John line: "F**k it – let's go do it."

So at 12.30pm along with temporary Fifth Beatle Billy Preston , that's just what they did.

Having abandoned plans to shoot footage from a helicopter, Lindsay-Hogg used six video cameras, including one over the road and a couple on the street to capture the response from passers-by on their lunchbreak.

Get Back | The Beatles: Get Back | Disney+

Meanwhile, the sound was recorded on to a couple of eight-track recorders in the Apple basement studio.

The full setlist of the performance was as follows:

• "Get Back" (take one)
• "Get Back" (take two)
• "Don't Let Me Down" (take one)
• "I've Got a Feeling" (take one)
• "One After 909"
• "Dig a Pony"
• "I've Got a Feeling" (take two)
• "Don't Let Me Down" (take two)
• "Get Back" (take three)

While most of the people on Savile Row enjoyed the show, some local businesses and the Metropolitan Police weren't so keen.

Despite the best efforts of the staff at Apple to keep them at bay, they eventually made their way upstairs.

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"You've been playing on the roofs again, and you know your momma doesn't like it; she's going to have you arrested!" McCartney yelped as the cops burst on to the roof.

Evans switched off Lennon and Harrison's amps, but Macca, Ringo and Billy kept on playing, prompting Harrison to switch his amp back on and Evans to pop Lennon's back on for the group to finish the third and final take of 'Get Back'."

In 2021, one of the cops who shut down the performance – long-retired PC Ray Dagg – spoke about his involvement in a bit of pop history.

"Get Back" Rooftop Performance | The Beatles: Get Back | Disney+

The then-19-year-old officer told The Sunday Times that the force had received 30 complaints within a few minutes of the group starting up, but also admitted his threats to arrest the band were a "bluff".

"At that time, I didn’t know that they would never play together again," he said, adding that his involvement was "just work".

"At least there’s something on a film somewhere that will forever show that PC Ray Dagg shut down The Beatles.

"If that’s my lasting image of life, if that’s what people remember me for, that’s not bad. Thousands, millions of people don’t get remembered at all."

The Beatles, Get Back and London: on the trail of a timeless story

McCartney gave his thanks to a cheering Maureen Starkey ("Thanks Mo!") while Lennon quipped: "I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we've passed the audition."

The idea of Get Back being a completely live or as-live project never really got off the ground, and the album that became Let It Be was infamously "reproduced for disc" by Phil Spector –  much to the annoyance of Paul McCartney .

But 'I've Got a Feeling' (take one), 'One After 909' and "Dig a Pony' survived from the rooftop and were used on the original Let It Be album.

'Get Back' (take three) ended up on Anthology 3, while the Paul-driven Let It Be... Naked raided the rooftop tapes to get that authentic live sound, using a couple of takes of 'Don't Let Me Down' and 'I've Got A Feeling'.

The Be-Sharps - Baby On Board

The Beatles Rooftop Gig was of course part of The Beatles: Get Back series and was later r eleased to cinemas as a limited edition one-hour special .

And while it was controversially left off that year's 5-disc Let It Be re-release, it was later made available to stream in full.

That Rooftop Performance has often been imitated since, by everyone from the Across The Universe jukebox musical to U2 to James to Paul McCartney.

Maybe most memorably, The Simpsons barbershop quartet The Be Sharps (Homer, Apu, Barney and Principal Skinner), paid tribute, getting up on the roof of Moe's Tavern for one final performance of 'Baby on Board'

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News - 14 April 2024

“LET IT BE” – AT LAST

Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s Original 1970 Film  About The Beatles, Meticulously Restored by Peter Jackson’s Team at Park Road Post Production to  Launch Exclusively on Disney+ May 8, 2024

BURBANK, Calif. (April 16) – Today, Disney+ announced that “Let It Be,” director Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s original 1970 film about The Beatles, will launch exclusively on Disney+ May 8, 2024. This is the first time the film is available in over 50 years. 

First released in May 1970 amidst the swirl of The Beatles’ breakup, “Let It Be” now takes its rightful place in the band’s history. Once viewed through a darker lens, the film is now brought to light through its restoration and in the context of revelations brought forth in Peter Jackson’s multiple Emmy Award®-winning docuseries, “The Beatles: Get Back.” Released on Disney+ in 2021, the docuseries showcases the iconic foursome’s warmth and camaraderie, capturing a pivotal moment in music history. 

“Let It Be” contains footage not featured in the “Get Back” docuseries, bringing viewers into the studio and onto Apple Corps’ London rooftop in January 1969 as The Beatles, joined by Billy Preston, write and record their GRAMMY Award®-winning album  Let It Be , with its Academy Award®-winning title song, and perform live for the final time as a group. With the release of “The Beatles: Get Back,” fan clamour for the original “Let It Be” film reached a fever pitch. With Lindsay-Hogg’s full support, Apple Corps asked Peter Jackson’s Park Road Post Production to dive into a meticulous restoration of the film from the original 16mm negative, which included lovingly remastering the sound using the same MAL de-mix technology that was applied to the “Get Back” docuseries. 

Michael Lindsay-Hogg says, “’Let It Be’ was ready to go in October/November 1969, but it didn’t come out until April 1970. One month before its release, The Beatles officially broke up. And so the people went to see ‘Let It Be’ with sadness in their hearts, thinking, ‘I’ll never see The Beatles together again. I will never have that joy again,’ and it very much darkened the perception of the film. But, in fact, how often do you get to see artists of this stature working together to make what they hear in their heads into songs. And then you get to the roof and you see their excitement, camaraderie and sheer joy in playing together again as a group and know, as we do now, that it was the final time, and we view it with full understanding of who they were and still are and a little poignancy. I was knocked out by what Peter was able to do with ‘Get Back,’using all the footage I’d shot 50 years previously.” 

“I’m absolutely thrilled that Michael’s movie, ‘Let It Be,’ has been restored and is finally being re-released after being unavailable for decades,” says Peter Jackson. "I was so lucky to have access to Michael’s outtakes for 'Get Back,’ and I’ve always thought that ‘Let It Be’ is needed to complete the ‘Get Back’ story. Over three parts, we showed Michael and The Beatles filming a groundbreaking new documentary, and ‘Let It Be’ is that documentary – the movie they released in 1970. I now think of it all as one epic story, finally completed after five decades. The two projects support and enhance each other: ‘Let It Be’ is the climax of ‘Get Back,’ while ‘Get Back’ provides a vital missing context for ‘Let It Be.’ Michael Lindsay-Hogg was unfailingly helpful and gracious while I made ‘Get Back,’ and it’s only right that his original movie has the last word...looking and sounding far better than it did in 1970.”

“Let It Be,” directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, stars John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, with a special appearance by Billy Preston. The film was produced by Neil Aspinall with The Beatles acting as executive producers. The director of photography was Anthony B Richmond.

“Let It Be” will debut exclusively on Disney+ May 8, 2024.

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Peter Brown, One of the Beatles’ Closest Confidants, Tells All (Again)

At 87, the dapper insider is releasing a new book of interviews conducted in 1980 and 1981 with the band and people nearest to it.

By Ben Sisario

Peter Brown stood in his spacious Central Park West apartment, pointing first at the dining table and then through the window to the park outside, with Strawberry Fields just to the right.

“John sat at that table looking through here,” Brown said, “and he couldn’t take his eyes off the park.”

That’s John as in Lennon. And the story of the former Beatle coveting this living-room view in 1971 — and how Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, eventually got their own place one block down, at the Dakota — is just one of Brown’s countless nuggets of Fab Four lore. In the 1960s he was an assistant to Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager, and then an officer at Apple Corps, the band’s company. A key figure in the Beatles’ secretive inner circle, Brown kept a red telephone on his desk whose number was known only to the four members.

And it was Brown who, in 1969, informed Lennon that he and Ono could quickly and quietly wed in a small British territory on the edge of the Mediterranean, a piece of advice immortalized in “The Ballad of John and Yoko”: “Peter Brown called to say, ‘You can make it OK/You can get married in Gibraltar, near Spain.’”

Next week, Brown and the writer Steven Gaines are releasing a book, “All You Need Is Love: The Beatles in Their Own Words,” made up of interviews they conducted in 1980 and 1981 with the band and people close to it, including business representatives, lawyers, wives and ex-wives — the raw material that Brown and Gaines used for their earlier narrative biography of the band, “The Love You Make: An Insider’s Story of the Beatles,” published in 1983.

Now 87, Brown is a polarizing figure in Beatles history. He was a witness to some of the band’s most important moments and was a trusted keeper of its secrets. “The only people left are Paul and Ringo and me,” he said.

On a tour of Brown’s apartment, the spoils of his access were everywhere. In his bedroom, Brown showed off an original image of the cover of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” with background figures (like Gandhi ) that didn’t make the final cut. In the dining room are binders and boxes stuffed with Beatle-related snapshots and correspondence.

But the publication of “The Love You Make” four decades ago also made him a kind of villain. According to Brown, the band agreed to interviews to set the record straight about its history. Yet the book — primarily written by Gaines, a journalist and biographer known for detailed, warts-and-all portraits — was seen as tawdry and sensational, preoccupied with sex lives and internecine conflicts, with music a secondary subject. Excerpts ran in National Enquirer.

To the band and many of those around them, it was seen as a betrayal. Paul McCartney accused Brown of misleading him by pitching it as a more general book about music in the 1960s. Linda McCartney said she and Paul burned it.

“That book was a shame,” Mark Lewisohn , the pre-eminent Beatles scholar, said in a recent interview.

“It’s almost like there are two different Peter Browns,” Lewisohn added. “There’s the Peter Brown I know, who is this upright, respectable, very successful businessman. And then the one who attached his name to this Steven Gaines book.”

Brown has heard all the criticism before, and waves it off. Sitting in a chair he inherited from Epstein — and dapper as always in a purple button-down shirt and charcoal slacks — Brown said the book stands as an accurate portrayal, and that the Beatles knew full well what they were getting into.

“There was never any effort on my part to make it negative,” Brown said in his unflappably gentle voice, as classical music wafted quietly through his home. “And nobody’s ever questioned that it was true.”

He also rejected McCartney’s version of events. “Paul imagines things,” Brown said. “Everything he does, he has his own way of remembering, and he’s crazy about it.”

Gaines, for his part, attributes the notoriety of the original book to his and Brown’s refusal to produce a sanitized hagiography, and their decision instead to publish controversial private details. Among those was a rumor that Lennon once had a sexual encounter with Epstein, which Brown and Gaines reported as fact, based on their research.

“Nobody had put something like that in a book,” Gaines said. That episode, on a trip to Spain in 1963, has been debated for years by Beatles commentators. Lennon denied having sex with Epstein, saying in an interview with Playboy: “It was almost a love affair, but not quite. It was never consummated.”

Brown and Gaines’s new book, “All You Need Is Love,” goes even deeper into Beatle lore than their first. It offers an extended transcript of Ono denying, not too persuasively, that she introduced Lennon to heroin, and includes various firsthand accounts of the threats and chaos the band faced on tour in Manila in 1966. Ron Kass, who led the Beatles’ Apple label, describes the impossibility of running a business with Lennon and McCartney as the bosses. One, he says, wanted the label design to be green, the other white; Kass decided to make each side a different color.

There are also startling comments from McCartney and George Harrison about Lennon, revealing the tension and raw feelings that were still present a decade after the band broke up, in interviews recorded just weeks before Lennon was killed in December 1980. Harrison calls his former bandmate “a piece of [expletive]” and wonders why he had “become so nasty.”

McCartney describes Lennon and Ono as “very suspicious people,” and portrays his relationship with them as a kind of power struggle.

“The way to get their friendship is to do everything the way they require it. To do anything else is how to not get their friendship,” McCartney says in the book. “I know that if I absolutely lie down on the ground and just do everything like they say and laugh at all their jokes and don’t expect my jokes to ever get laughed at,” he adds, “if I’m willing to do all that, then we can be friends.”

Lennon never got a chance to respond, Brown said. “I spoke to John, and said, ‘Listen, I’m coming to New York to do some of the recordings,’” he recalled. “And he said, ‘Yes, fine. Looking forward to it.’ And that was the week before he was murdered.” Ono’s interview was done a few months later, in the spring of 1981.

As with many Beatles histories, there are plenty of contradictions, opposing perspectives and selective memories. Interviews with the manager Allen Klein and the lawyer John L. Eastman offer an icy tit-for-tat on the battle for business control during the band’s last days. And Alexis Mardas, a.k.a. Magic Alex, the supposed inventor who others in the book call a con man, gives his account — with skeptical footnotes added by Brown and Gaines — of the Beatles’ retreat in India in 1968.

When asked about finding the truth amid contrasting accounts in an oral history, Brown turned philosophical. “It depends on where you’re sitting,” he said.

There are even conflicting stories about the genesis of Brown and Gaines’s new book. According to Brown, it began when a New York Times reporter — me — asked him for comment three years ago about “The Beatles: Get Back,” Peter Jackson’s exhaustive look at the band’s stormy recording sessions in early 1969. Brown realized then, he said, that he was one of the last remaining witnesses to important history.

But Gaines said that the origins of the project go back years before, to when he wondered what to do with the original interview tapes, which were languishing in his safe deposit box on Long Island. Gaines said he considered donating or selling them, but Brown demurred. They settled on a book of edited transcriptions, though they still squabble over details like ownership of the tapes. “It’s ‘Rashomon’ with Peter,” Gaines said.

After Brown quit his work with the Beatles on Dec. 31, 1970 — the day that McCartney filed a lawsuit to dissolve the band’s partnership — he came to the United States and worked with Robert Stigwood , the Australian-born entertainment mogul who had huge hits in the 1970s with the Bee Gees and the films “Saturday Night Fever” and “Grease.” Then Brown founded a public relations firm, BLJ Worldwide, which in 2011 came under scrutiny for its work representing the families of Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya and of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Brown declined to speak about that episode on the record.

But he remains most proud of his association with the Beatles, and said he viewed “All You Need Is Love” as a final gesture defining his legacy with the band.

“This is the end of it,” he said. “Hopefully we’re closing the door now.”

Ben Sisario covers the music industry. He has been writing for The Times since 1998. More about Ben Sisario

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Beatles’ 1970 ‘Let It Be’ Documentary, Out of Circulation for Four Decades, Headed to Disney+ After Restoration by Peter Jackson’s Team

By Chris Willman

Chris Willman

Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic

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For decades, the attitude toward the documentary “ Let It Be ” in the Beatles ‘ camp seemed to be: Let it it rest in peace. But the film is finally going to be seen again. A restored version of the 1970 movie is coming soon to Disney+ , the same service that brought fans “The Beatles: Get Back,” the 2021 Peter Jackson docuseries that used outtakes from director Michael Lindsay-Hogg ‘s original film.

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Jackson used hours of outtakes from Lindsay-Hogg’s footage to assemble “The Beatles: Get Back.” During the publicity campaign for that project, he repeatedly vowed that his fresh treatment of the material was meant to complement the original film, not forever supplant it, and that the original doc would eventually be seen again so that they could stand as companion pieces.

During the campaign for “Get Back,” Jackson told Variety that he thought “Let It Be” had been unfairly characterized as depressing, partly because it came out immediately in the wake of the Beatles’ breakup, but also because the color scheme of the 16mm film, as released in 1970, had a dreary look that lent itself to a downbeat interpretation. “Get Back” had a more colorful look to it, and that seems likely to be true of what Jackson’s team has done with the original elements of “Let It Be” now, too.

Moreover, though, Jackson’s team has had a fresh crack at the audio of the 1970 movie. A press statement says that “with Lindsay-Hogg’s full support, Apple Corps asked Peter Jackson’s Park Road Post Production to dive into a meticulous restoration of the film from the original 16mm negative, which included lovingly remastering the sound using the same MAL de-mix technology that was applied to the ‘Get Back’ docuseries.”

Lindsay-Hogg sounded his approval of the new efforts in a statement. “’Let It Be’ was ready to go in October/November 1969, but it didn’t come out until April 1970,” he recalled. “One month before its release, the Beatles officially broke up. And so the people went to see ‘Let It Be’ with sadness in their hearts, thinking, ‘I’ll never see the Beatles together again. I will never have that joy again,’ and it very much darkened the perception of the film. But, in fact, how often do you get to see artists of this stature working together to make what they hear in their heads into songs? And then you get to the roof, and you see their excitement, camaraderie and sheer joy in playing together again as a group and know, as we do now, that it was the final time, and we view it with the full understanding of who they were and still are and a little poignancy. I was knocked out by what Peter was able to do with ‘Get Back,’ using all the footage I’d shot 50 years previously.”

Lindsay-Hogg elaborated on the new restoration in an interview with the New York Times published Tuesday. “When Peter first showed me some restored images of the film, one was of a couple of the Beatles from the back, and their hair in the original looked very clumped,” the director noted. “Then he said, “Now let me show you what we’ve been working on.” It was the same shot, but you could see the individual strands of hair. The new version is a 21st century version of a 20th century movie. It is certainly brighter and livelier than what ended up on videotape. It looks now like it was intended to look in 1969 or 1970, although at my request, Peter did give it a more filmic look than ‘Get Back,’ which had a slightly more modern and digital look.”

Other restoration efforts had reportedly begun on the film in the 1990s and again in the 2000s, with an eye toward a possible DVD or theatrical release. Although the abandonments of previous restorations were widely ascribed to the disinterest of the surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney said in a 2016 interview that he was not the hold-up, and that he was encouraging of efforts to make the documentary available again.

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Press Release

Final bow for the beatles™ love™ by cirque du soleil set for july 7, 2024.

To view photos and b-roll, CLICK HERE

LAS VEGAS (April 9, 2024) – Cirque du Soleil and Apple Corps Ltd. announce today that The Beatles™ LOVE™ , the groundbreaking production celebrating the music and legacy of The Beatles through the artistry of Cirque du Soleil , will conclude its historic Las Vegas run at The Mirage on July 7, 2024 as the resort begins its transformation into the Hard Rock Las Vegas. Tickets to performances through June 29 are on sale now at  cirquedusoleil.com/beatles-love . Tickets for the final week of performances in July will be available in the coming weeks.

Celebrating its 18 th anniversary this year, The Beatles LOVE is a vibrant and thrilling production, driven by its GRAMMY®-winning soundtrack and breathtaking aerial artistry, colorful visuals and high-energy choreography on a 360-degree stage.

“ The Beatles LOVE has been seen by more than 11.5 million guests since opening in 2006,” said Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group CEO Stéphane Lefebvre. “It’s been an honor for all of us at Cirque du Soleil to collaborate with The Beatles and Apple Corps Ltd. on what can only be described as a masterpiece. We are grateful to the creators, cast, crew and all involved in bringing this show to life and we know The Beatles LOVE will live on long after the final bow.”

Created as the result of a friendship between Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté and George Harrison, The Beatles LOVE is a cultural icon on the Las Vegas Strip, having entertained Beatles fans across multiple generations and more than 500 musicians and celebrities. The collaboration combining the legendary music of The Beatles and the artistry of Cirque du Soleil, a first for both creative entities, has brought together Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison several times to celebrate the show’s gala premiere and milestone anniversaries.

The Beatles LOVE soundtrack, produced and mixed by the Beatles’ original producer George Martin and his son Giles Martin, is Cirque du Soleil’s first and only GRAMMY®-winning soundtrack. George and Giles Martin worked with the entire archive of Beatles recordings to create the soundscape for LOVE, utilizing 130 songs to create the 26-track soundtrack. 

As impressive as The Beatles LOVE becoming a live entertainment and rock music phenomenon is the story of the production itself. Since opening, the multi-talented cast has represented 44 nationalities from around the globe, and currently includes 11 original company members from the show’s inception. This diverse group of artists wears 11,600 costume pieces, 250 pairs of shoes, and 225 wigs each night. Creating the universe of The Beatles involves 750,000 lumens in projections and more than 500 props and scenic pieces. LOVE’s guests are welcomed into the theatre lobby by 20,000 colorful LED lights.  Over the course of its 18-year run, LOVE’s audiences have been showered with 13.5 tons of confetti during the show’s thrilling finale.

The Beatles LOVE performs Tuesday – Saturday at 7 and 9:30 p.m. inside its world-class theater at The Mirage Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, also home to the official Beatles shop, the only licensed Beatles retail store in the world. For more information, please visit cirquedusoleil.com/beatles-love .

MEDIA CONTACT

Marie-Noëlle Caron

Cirque du Soleil

[email protected]

About Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group  

Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group is a world leader in live entertainment. In addition to producing world-renowned circus arts shows, the Company brings its creative approach to a large variety of entertainment forms, such as multimedia productions, immersive experiences, and special events. Going beyond its various creations, Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group aims to positively impact people, communities and the planet with its most important tools: creativity and art. Since its creation in 1984, more than 378 million people have been inspired on 6 continents and 86 countries. The Canadian company now employs more than 4000 employees, including 1200 artists from 80 different nationalities. For more information about Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group, please visit  CDSentertainmentgroup.com .    

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Beatles Documentary Let It Be Heads to Disney+ — Get Release Date

Ryan schwartz, senior editor.

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A restored version of the classic Beatles documentary Let It Be is headed to Disney+.

The streamer announced Tuesday that director Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s original 1970 film about The Beatles will drop on Wednesday, May 8. This is the first time the film has been made available in over 50 years.

Peter Jackson, who oversaw the restoration of Lindsay-Hogg’s footage for Get Back , is also behind Let It Be , having restored the film from the original 16mm negative. Sound has also been remastered using the same MAL de-mix technology used for Get Back .

“ Let It Be  was ready to go in October/November 1969, but it didn’t come out until April 1970. One month before its release, The Beatles officially broke up. And so the people went to see Let It Be with sadness in their hearts, thinking, ‘I’ll never see The Beatles together again. I will never have that joy again,’ and it very much darkened the perception of the film,” Lindsay-Hogg acknowledged in a statement Tuesday. “But, in fact, how often do you get to see artists of this stature working together to make what they hear in their heads into songs? And then you get to the roof, and you see their excitement, camaraderie, and sheer joy in playing together again as a group and know, as we do now, that it was the final time, and we view it with the full understanding of who they were and still are and a little poignancy. I was knocked out by what Peter was able to do with Get Back , using all the footage I’d shot 50 years previously.”

Will you be watching the digital restoration of Let It Be on Disney+? Let us know in Comments.

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Cirque du Soleil’s Beatles-themed Las Vegas show will end after an 18-year run

FILE - A photo of Beatles member John Lennon is projected on the screen during the preview of “Love,” a new Beatles-themed Cirque du Soleil show, in Las Vegas, June 27, 2006. On Tuesday, April 9, 2024, it was announced that the final curtain will come down July 7 on Cirque du Soleil’s long-running show “The Beatles Love,” a cultural icon on the Las Vegas Strip that brought band members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr back together for public appearances throughout its 18-year run. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

FILE - Acrobats perform during the preview of “Love,” a new Beatles-themed Cirque du Soleil show, in Las Vegas, June 27, 2006. On Tuesday, April 9, 2024, it was announced that the final curtain will come down July 7 on Cirque du Soleil’s long-running show “The Beatles Love,” a cultural icon on the Las Vegas Strip that brought band members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr back together for public appearances throughout its 18-year run. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

FILE - Cirque du Soleil performers from “The Beatles LOVE” show perform in the casino at the The Mirage hotel-casino before the reopening of the show, Aug. 26, 2021, in Las Vegas. On Tuesday, April 9, 2024, it was announced that the final curtain will come down July 7 on Cirque du Soleil’s long-running show “The Beatles Love,” a cultural icon on the Las Vegas Strip that brought band members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr back together for public appearances throughout its 18-year run. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

FILE - Everlyne Lamontagne, who plays Lucy, trains with her choreographer Genevieve Dorion-Coupal, rear, for the preview of “Love,” a new Beatles-themed Cirque du Soleil show, in Las Vegas, June 27, 2006. On Tuesday, April 9, 2024, it was announced that the final curtain will come down July 7 on Cirque du Soleil’s long-running show “The Beatles Love,” a cultural icon on the Las Vegas Strip that brought band members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr back together for public appearances throughout its 18-year run. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

Paul McCartney walks the red carpet at the premiere of “Love,” a surrealistic portrayal of the Fab Four’s career performed by Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas, June 30, 2006. On Tuesday, April 9, 2024, it was announced that the final curtain will come down July 7 on Cirque du Soleil’s long-running show “The Beatles Love,” a cultural icon on the Las Vegas Strip that brought band members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr back together for public appearances throughout its 18-year run. (Isaac Brekken/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)

FILE - From left, Larry King, Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono Lennon, Olivia Harrison, Ringo Starr and Guy Laliberte, founder of Cirque du Soleil, pose for photos during the first anniversary of the Beatles Love at the Mirage hotel-casino in Las Vegas, June 26, 2007. On Tuesday, April 9, 2024, it was announced that the final curtain will come down July 7 on Cirque du Soleil’s long-running show “The Beatles Love,” a cultural icon on the Las Vegas Strip that brought band members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr back together for public appearances throughout its 18-year run. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

FILE - Ringo Starr, left, and his wife Barbara Bach laugh as they talk with the media on the red carpet at the premiere of “Love,” a surrealistic portrayal of the Fab Four’s career performed by Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas, June 30, 2006. On Tuesday, April 9, 2024, it was announced that the final curtain will come down July 7 on Cirque du Soleil’s long-running show “The Beatles Love,” a cultural icon on the Las Vegas Strip that brought band members Paul McCartney and Starr back together for public appearances throughout its 18-year run. (John Locher/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, File)

FILE - From left, Olivia Harrison, wife of the late George Harrison; Guy Laliberte, the owner and founder of Cirque du Soleil; and Yoko Ono pose on the red carpet at the premiere of “The Beatles Love by Cirque Du Soleil” in Las Vegas, June 30, 2006. On Tuesday, April 9, 2024, it was announced that the final curtain will come down July 7 on Cirque du Soleil’s long-running show “The Beatles Love,” a cultural icon on the Las Vegas Strip that brought band members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr back together for public appearances throughout its 18-year run. (John Locher/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, File)

FILE - Yoko Ono arrives at the premier of The Beatles “LOVE” by Cirque du Soleil at The Mirage hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, June 30, 2006. On Tuesday, April 9, 2024, it was announced that the final curtain will come down July 7 on Cirque du Soleil’s long-running show “The Beatles Love,” a cultural icon on the Las Vegas Strip that brought band members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr back together for public appearances throughout its 18-year run. (AP Photo/Laura Rauch, File)

FILE - Performers with Cirque du Soleil’s “The Beatles LOVE” make their grand entrance for a performance at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, Aug. 21, 2014. On Tuesday, April 9, 2024, it was announced that the final curtain will come down July 7 on Cirque du Soleil’s long-running show “The Beatles Love,” a cultural icon on the Las Vegas Strip that brought band members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr back together for public appearances throughout its 18-year run. (Eric Verduzco/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, File)

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LAS VEGAS (AP) — The final curtain will come down this summer on Cirque du Soleil’s long-running show “The Beatles Love,” a cultural icon on the Las Vegas Strip that brought band members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr back together for public appearances throughout its 18-year run.

Cirque announced on Tuesday that the show housed at the Mirage will end on July 7, part of the iconic hotel-casino’s major renovation plan to rebrand itself into the Hard Rock Las Vegas.

Stéphane Lefebvre, CEO of the Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group, said in a statement that more than 11.5 million people have seen the show — an energetic portrayal of the Fab Four’s history and music with aerial stunts and whimsical dance numbers on a colorful, 360-degree stage.

“We are grateful to the creators, cast, crew and all involved in bringing this show to life,” Lefebvre said, “and we know The Beatles LOVE will live on long after the final bow.”

In a separate statement, Joe Lupo, president of the Mirage, thanked the Cirque performers and crew members working behind the scenes “who played a part in entertaining guests and bridged generations” for nearly two decades.

The production premiered in the summer of 2006, with red carpet appearances by both McCartney and Starr, as well as Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison, wife of the late Beatle George Harrison. They reunited a year later to celebrate the show’s first anniversary.

According to Cirque, the show was born out of the friendship between its founder Guy Laliberté and Harrison, the Beatles’ lead guitarist who died in 2001. John Lennon was killed in 1980.

The show is set to a specialized soundtrack that earned Cirque two Grammy Awards in 2008, a first for the entertainment company. Cirque said the Beatles’ original producer, George Martin, and his son produced and mixed the 26-song soundscape, pulling from 130 songs from the Beatles’ powerhouse music catalog and archives.

The current cast includes 11 original members from the show’s inception, according to Cirque. More than 11,000 costume pieces are worn on show night, including 250 pairs of shoes and 225 wigs. Audiences throughout the show’s run, Cirque said, have been showered with 13.5 tons of confetti during the final act, which closes with the Beatles’ 1967 hit “All You Need is Love.”

“Beatles Love” is one of six Cirque productions on the Las Vegas Strip. Tickets for the final shows in July will go on sale in the coming weeks.

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The Beatles Tease Announcement: ‘There Will be an Answer’

The legendary British band's website and social accounts tease another release.

By Lars Brandle

Lars Brandle

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There’s movement in the Beatles camp.

Less than six months after the Fab Four dropped what was billed as their last song, “Now And Then,” the legendary British band’s website and social accounts tease another release.

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View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Beatles (@thebeatles)

There will be an answer. pic.twitter.com/lI5wcqGlcw — Walt Disney Studios (@DisneyStudios) April 15, 2024

Let It Be premiered in cinemas back in 1970 , and was released on home video formats in the early 1980s, but was never officially issued on DVD, blu-ray or licensed for streaming.

Jackson and his team helped complete “Now And Then,” then backed up to direct its wistful official music video .

“Now And Then” began life as a demo written and sung by John Lennon, was later developed and worked on by Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, and was finished by Paul and Ringo, the surviving members of The Beatles, more than 40 years after the group began work on it.

The late Lennon’s vocals were recorded to tape in the 1970s, and remained there until Jackson found a solution. The New Zealander and his team developed a technology for the three-part documentary series, which enabled Lennon’s vocals to be uncoupled from his piano part.

The single blasted to No. 1 on the Official U.K. Singles Chart , setting records in the process, and notching the Beatles’ 18th leader in their homeland.

Billboard has reached out to Apple Corps for comment on the forthcoming Beatles announcement.

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