It was 50 years ago that the Beatles performed in
their last ever public concert and now, a new film looks back at the early
touring years.
By: David Robson/Express
The
Beatles final live concert at Candlestick Park, San Francisco, Aug, 29, 1966.They
ripped through Little Richard’s Long Tall Sally, as they had a thousand times
before, then they were off. For the last time.The Beatles, the first band to
make sports stadiums their stage were turning their backs on stadiums, stages
and live audiences---forever.The crowd wasn’t told, nobody knew, maybe they
didn’t quite know themselves but one thing they did know: they’d had enough of
it.
Back then,‘audience’
is not really the word to describe the spectators. They, mostly girls, didn’t
go to Beatles concerts to listen, they went there to scream.Nobody took in the
music and that included the Beatles. They couldn’t hear themselves play. It
was, said Ringo, it was turning them into bad musicians.
In
1963 a British journalist, writing about the Moptops and their fans came up
with the term Beatlemania. It was no more than the truth.It really was a mania.
Rudolph Valentino had crowds of idolatrous women, Frank Sinatra had his
bobbysoxers, today’s celebrities court and complain about media harassment, but
none have ever experienced anything like this.
They
were terrific together in every way: sharp, clever, funny and quick. If John
was the wittiest and had edge, Paul was twinkly and charming and George and
Ringo often had a good line. Liverpudlians have a way with words and from
the start their playing, their singing, their harmonies, and their confidence
were utterly captivating. Whether you were a music fan or not, a teenager or
not, a girl or not, From Me To You struck a chord of recognition – this was
something wonderful, something special that we were going to love.
The
moptop haircuts and Beatle suits (forced on them by their manager Brian
Epstein) helped too. We knew we loved them, we didn’t yet know they were
geniuses (or, as the late Ian MacDonald, author of a great book on the Beatles
says, Lennon and McCartney together were “a genius”).
What
we see in the Eight Days A Week film is not so much their genius as
songwriters, it’s the magic of their presence and their brilliance as
performers, their personality and the evidence that they had something about
them that nobody else has ever matched. You don’t need to be looking through
rose-tinted bifocals to see how magical they were.
The
Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years, an enjoyable feature-length
film for releasein cinemas September 21, captures the glorious madness of it
all.Whether were around at the time or not, it comes as a shock to see how
crazy it was. And even if you do remember, it’s a joy to be reminded how
utterly wonderful the Beatles were. They were a brilliant band, forged by
Liverpool’s Cavern, numberless hours playing in Hamburg and on the road.Through
all the madness, the pressure, the travel, the work, the interviews, the
hysterical fans, the crazed love, the threats, what kept them sane and
sustained them was their four-in-oneness. And their influence continues to
this day.
The
Beatles: Eight Days A Week-The Touring Years will be released in the
Philippines on September 21, 2016 through Solar Pictures.
Official
Hashtags: #TheBeatlesEightDaysAWeek, #TheBeatles
Official
Website http://thebeatleseightdaysaweek.com/
Solar
Pictures is on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @solarpicturesPH (PR)
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