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It occurred to us, as it must have with everyone else, that the release of Eight Days A Week really called for an accompanying soundtrack, or at least a parallel collection of music spanning the whole of The Beatles’ documented live performing career. Into that void Robert and Richard have stepped, with their proposed collection of live performances ranging from the Star Club to Candlestick. Necessarily, some of the extant audio is rough, but not unlistenable and certainly essential to understanding what kind of live musicians these guys were (and how they did it to an audience).
Locales represented here include Hamburg – Stockholm – London – New York City – Melbourne – Blackpool – Paris – Houston – Tokyo – San Francisco.
Find Richard’s books here.
Find Robert’s books here.
Wow! Thanks! I’ll be listening to all of it tonight!
Wow! Thanks! I’ll be listening to all of it tonight!
Thanks much for the download. Awesome and expertly assembled!
They changed the key in Yesterday in 66 because the song is originally written and recorded a full step down. But the song is played in the G position.
So in 65 Paul tuned his acoustic down a full step and recorded it that way – But he used open chords and played it with G, F#m, B7, etc. open chords.
So in 66, if he played it in the originally key, John, George, and Paul would’ve had to tune down a full step or have detuned guitars on stage that they’d have changed to. Paul, being a great singer at that time just said “Heck with that, we’ll just play it the way that I wrote it, but without the detuned instruments”.
Note that in 76, Paul did the same thing… sort of. He plays Yesterday in the original, detuned key. THEN he plays Blackbird using the same guitar, meaning that Blackbird is actually a full step lower than the original recording. It was simply so he didn’t have to keep swapping guitars.
@BW (regarding why they played “Yesterday” in what sounds like a higher key).
Yes, you are exactly right…Paul recorded “Yesterday” in G position but with his guitar tuned down a full-step so that it came out in F….and Paul can be heard explaining this to George before the ‘Anthology 2’ alternate take. (I’m guessing George saw Paul playing what looked like a G chord but he heard something that didn’t sound like a G and thought “Hey wait a second…” )
And as for the comments about how all the band is tuned down half a step at the first Tokyo show…My guess is that it was to make the singing a little easier, at least for the first night, so they wouldn’t have to hit notes *as* high. It was obviously a conscious decision to go down half a step because, as the video shows, the capo on George’s 12-string is one fret lower than normal (they were NOT going to detune the 12-string…those guitars are hard enough to keep in tune even for normal playing.)
Much thanks for putting together the Live Anthology show!
Excellent stuff. However I tend to think of The Beatles (based on the evidence we have) as a competent rather than a great live band. To me acts like The Who, The Stones, Springsteen, (at times) Dylan etc belong to that category, all those regularly surpassed the studio versions when playing live. Admittedly to do that in The Beatles is a tough call. You may excuse some of George’s frankly awful early live playing by saying the ‘energy” is good, but really he should have done better. As you say by 66 they had given up, would have been interesting to see how they would have been live in the 70s going out with all the baggage that McCartney deliberately tried to lose in the early days of Wings.
The Beatles of 1960-63 were, by all accounts, an amazing live act. By the 1964 tour, they were faced with enormous crowds that could barely hear them, an inability to hear themselves, and growing fatigue and apathy with the state of their live performances. When the audience can’t really hear you and frankly doesn’t much care what you sound like… I always try to keep in mind that this was a band that was still pretty damned tight, even when they couldn’t hear themselves. Had they hung in with the touring, at least the technology would have improved – technology available to the Stones and the Who and Springsteen in the era(s) in which they made their reputations as great live acts.
“Hollywood Bowl” should have been reissued 30 years ago on CD and I feel Apple/Capitol took the easy way out by finally reissuing it now. At least a 2 CD “Live Anthology” would have been nice!
A very good selection, much appreciated! Is it possible to set up a download with markers for individual track selections? Cheers.
I would love to hear your thoughts on how the four Beatles recreated the beatles songs live in their solo careers.
Great podcast, thoroughly enjoyed the journey!
The one towards the end of the show is the worst version of Act Naturally I have ever heard, poor Ringo !
Funny, even Ald Bicknell admitted that John just couldn’t get the words of Help! right during concerts
Good picks, guys.
Is it just me or does anyone else notice that the bass frequencies are boosted on the live tracks in this episode? I had to put a -6db bass cut on my car stereo to fix it. Hasn’t been an issue for me on other podcasts.
That performance of Ask Me Why at the Star Club is remarkable, and it comes across despite the far-from-perfect recording.
Would it be possible to get a list of the tracks you would include on this “Live Anthology” so that one could create a disc of this? I am pretty certain I would have any and all of the tracks you would include on the album in a lossless format.
From what I have heard and audibly observed John Lennon always kind of left it open or even relied on Band ARRANGEMENTS . It first hit me especially when hearing the development of STRAWBERRY FIELDS how the arrangemet took shape very different than he was writing it. Even in his last work on DOUBLE FANTASY he gave demos to JACK DOUGLAS his producer to do Band arrangement on the songs. Wheras PAUL a lot of his songs seem to be presented fully formed with arrangements this was particularly true in the latter 1967 onward Beatles records. George seems to have been given much more freedom on Lennon songs too as far as guitar parts. There are exception of course. THANKS.
Yes, Lennon seemed to have always excelled as a lyricist but melodies where often more of McCartney’s strength.
Ps. I DON’t agree that the Mellotron riff on Strawberry Fields comes from that bit of John playing the melodica in 1964! He plays a first two chords sounding similar but then stops to where it goes in Strawberrry and I think its a stretch to connect them myself. I think its a accident and Paul came up with that intro himself to Strawberry Fields on the MELLOTRON.
So Paul McCartney is yet again to blame for the break-up?
The song writing formula worked well up until 1967- Lennon and McCartney collaborated. What changed in 1968 – Yoko No-o.
She impacted on their ability to collaborate so McCartney had no alternative but to turn up with songs fully formed.
McCartney was always generous (helped Lennon with Don’t Let Me Down) and assisted Harrison with over 80 run-throughs of All Things Must Pass, yet somehow he is always the villain.
Not sure how.
ATMP was also on the shortlist for Let It Be btw despite them not getting on top of it.
Both Lennon and McCartney broke up the Beatles. It’s just that McCartney did it publicly and it was based on arrogance and resentment.
Lennon outgrew the Beatles as a creative outlet in 1965. He just hung around because his insecurity, fear governed his decision making until he met Yoko Ono. He wasn’t able to reflect on his impotence as a Beatle until he saw someone, doing what they wanted to do that reflected subversive actions and creativity, which is Yoko Ono. The fact that it was a woman and older than him revealed his Mommy complex.
Started out as a great program diseminating Demo’s and alternate takes to popular Beatle songs and turned into a promo show for mediocre Weezer.
Prompts one to compare the lack of creativity in the latter Luther Russell productions. They all, but one, sound alike, over produced whiny pop music.
There is a place for that program. Just didn’t expect it in the program nor did it enlighten.