The Beatles Concert Guide. Non-commercial voluntary offer. Constructive criticism is welcome. | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Today we remember the most significant concerts of the Beatles – performances that have become part of the history of rock music.

Concerts in Hamburg (1960)

In 1960, when the Beatles were just beginning their careers, they were, of course, far from being the most sought-after band in their native Liverpool. But British rockers were in good demand in Germany – so 20-year-old guys went there to fill their hand and earn money. They performed at the Hamburg club Kaiserkeller, in one day the future stars received only two and a half pounds, and they had to live in a small room in the cinema building. But all this was not in vain. The musicians got used to each other and got a real concert experience. They returned to Foggy Albion no longer as novice musicians, but as a group with an established reputation and style.

link: ab_channel=FerOlve5

ab_channel=TheCollectorsWarehouse

ab_channel=DaveNevins%E2%80%94InspiredBeatles

Performances at the Cavern Club (1961-1963)

The growth of the group’s popularity can be easily traced by the musicians’ fees. If for their first concert in the Liverpool Cavern club the four received five pounds, then for the last (and there were 262 in total) already 300. The atmosphere in the club was the most relaxed. The Beatles could stop right in the middle of the song, smoke, chat with the audience and even kill the worm. Fans of the group began to constantly come to the Cavern, and the musicians acquired a considerable number of personal admirers.

link: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=beatles+the+Cavern+Club

Benefit Concert at the Prince of Wales Theater (1963)

On November 4, The Beatles, who had already won the hearts of listeners in many countries of the world, performed not in front of anyone, but in front of the royal family. And besides the ruling dynasty, the hall was full of rich people from high society. Before the last song, John Lennon addressed the audience: “Those who sit in cheap seats, clap your hands. And the rest – just jingle your jewelry.” Despite such liberties, after the concert the musicians received an audience with the Queen Mother .

link: https://vimeo.com/151903948?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=47853706

link 2:

The Beatles – Concert at the Washington Coliseum (1964)

The Beatles: Live At Washington Colosseum 1964 is the definitive document of the best gig the band ever played. By January of that year, having conquered Britain and northern Europe, the Beatles had become accustomed to frenzied audiences greeting them wherever they performed. This wasn’t so, however, in Paris, where the band played a three-week residency before French crowds that were difficult to win over. The universal power of their mojo now in question, their next scheduled stop was the U.S., where an indie label album and three singles had all flopped. Things were beginning to look up after a media blitz by Capitol Records helped push their newest single up to number one. Still, after a month-long slog in Paris, they had no idea what kind of audience reaction they could expect across the pond from the world’s leading exporter of pop culture. But on February 11th, 1964, they were pleased to find waiting for them a massive crowd that had already worn out the grooves on their brand new Meet The Beatles LP and knew their songs as well as they themselves did. The result was a 35 minute, adrenaline-fueled, ecstatic rocket ride for all.

Film footage of the concert, videotaped in black and white for closed circuit broadcast, has been floating around in bootleg form for decades. But it was never complete and the sound and picture resembled an ancient newsreel from World War ll. For the first time, the complete concert has been restored and enhanced from the original broadcast tape, giving the picture an almost HD depth not seen even in the best clips on The Beatles Anthology. The audio mix is not perfect, mind you. The sound engineer was constantly chasing guitar and vocal solos while recording from the house system feed straight to a mono soundtrack. But the overall energy of the band never suffers. The chiming tone of John and George’s amps, the booming authority of Paul’s bass, the highs and lows of Ringo’s drums and cymbals, are all present here, crisper and deeper than ever before. And of course there are the voices, right on pitch without the aid of monitors. With only two microphones visible onstage, It’s a bit of a mystery how everything shows up in such detail under such primitive conditions.

For most Beatles fans and casual onlookers, the official paradigm of the Beatles in concert has previously been the first Shea Stadium gig, filmed in color in August 1965. But this footage, while both beautiful and thrilling, is more a testimony to the grand spectacle of Beatlemania than it is to the Beatles as a band. The music by this time had taken a back seat to the madness. The Beatles had given up trying to hear each other onstage and surrendered to the screaming throng, goosing them at every turn just for laughs. “We were fed up with touring,” Ringo later recalled, “because we were becoming such bad musicians.” Sure enough, every song recorded at Shea Stadium was either overdubbed in post production, replaced with a different performance or cut from the film altogether. In Washington, D.C., though, every note of the original performance is on display, and, with the exception of one bum chord, flawless. The Beatles are visibly in sync with one another right out of the gate like jockeys on thoroughbreds. Two nights earlier they had made television history on The Ed Sullivan Show. But the performances there were a mixed bag of nervousness, bad sound mixing and low-volume restraint. In the unbridled atmosphere of the Colosseum, however, the band is simply on fire.

The Beatles took to the stage at 8.31pm, and performed 12 songs: ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, ‘From Me To You’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, ‘This Boy’, ‘All My Loving’, ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’, ‘Please Please Me’, ‘Till There Was You’, ‘She Loves You’, ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’, ‘Twist And Shout’ and ‘Long Tall Sally’.

link: https://vimeo.com/244758056

link 2: https://ok.ru/video/3452766341

link 3: https://vk.com/video17060606_163393189

link 4: https://my.mail.ru/mail/yurij.gubin.53/video/7/117.html

Performances at New York’s Shea Stadium (1965)

This concert was the apotheosis of The Beatles’ American tour, during which it became completely clear that everyone on the other side of the Atlantic was crazy about the music of the Liverpool Four. On August 15, more than 55 thousand fans gathered at the stadium. And the revenue from the show amounted to a record for that time 304 thousand dollars. The concert itself was filmed by 15 cameras at once, from the material filmed that day was later edited into a musical film.

link: ab_channel=SobatMenza

Performance on the Air Force (1967)

British TV people have conceived a grandiose project. The global television program “Our World” was broadcast all over the planet, and it was the Beatles who became its heroes. New satellite broadcasting technologies came to the rescue here. Needless to say, the Liverpool Four were the first team to receive such an honor. The musicians themselves, watched by 400 million viewers, performed their songs directly from the legendary Abbey Road studio.

link:

Impromptu concert on the roof of the Apple Studios building (1969)

The musicians were working on the Let It Be album and things were going so-so for them. The atmosphere in the studio was tense, everyone was annoyed by Yoko Ono, who wanted to be present at all sessions. Apparently, everyone already understood that the glorious history of the group was coming to an end. Then the Beatles decided to arrange a small concert right on the roof of the building. The musicians did not call the audience or make a playlist, they just went out into the fresh air and started playing. At the end of the speech, John Lennon said to the residents of the neighboring houses leaning out of their windows: “Thank you on behalf of the band and each of us. I hope we passed the audition.”

link: