52 Years Ago Today, August 29, 1966, The Beatles Final Concert
Although they made an unannounced appearance on the roof of the Apple Building in January, 1969, the last actual live Beatles concert took place on this day in 1966 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.
REMEMBERING THE BEATLES' FINAL CONCERT
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 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Their entire police detail was suddenly withdrawn and the Beatles were left to defend themselves against a hoard of angry nationalists who manhandled them all the way to the airport.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.
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 it's 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 to 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.
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 George Harrison in the "Anthology."
John Lennon took particular delight in making vaguely obscene alterations to their song lyrics,
["I want to hold your gland"], knowing full well that no one had any clue what he was saying.
"It was just 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 their latest album, "Revolver," released just days before they kicked off [their final tour].
On August 29, 1966, they played their final concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco
Read more, hear recording of final Beatles concert
HEAR RECORDING OF BEATLES FATEFUL CANDLESTICK PARK SHOW
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/remembering-beatles-final-concert-247497/
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