Beatles' last show: It was 50 years ago today
You say you want a revolution? Musically, The Beatles sparked one 50 years ago — Aug. 29, 1966 — when they played their last official concert.
The set was short — only 11 songs — and the crowd was surprisingly sparse — at 25,000 tickets sold, San Francisco's Candlestick Park was only about half full. But what makes this a milestone event in music history is that The Beatles, the most popular band in the world at the time, were making the unheard-of decision to focus all efforts on studio recording and retire from live performing.
Earlier in 1966, The Beatles had released Revolver, an album expertly crafted with guest musicians, intricate arrangements and pioneering studio effects. None of the songs from that record were performed on this final tour. The next few years would bring the masterpiece Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour, the White Album and Abbey Road. No longer burdened with having to try to replicate their songs on stages with inadequate sound systems, the Beatles were free to experiment, to push the boundaries of what pop music could be. It also helped that they had more time to create in the studio, and thus, the aforementioned audio revolution was born.
But what of The Beatles as a live act? For all the reverence we continue to place on the band and the lasting legacy of their songs, it's telling that they are not remembered as great live performers. Certainly, they had the chops — they honed their skills playing hours and hours of shows in Hamburg and at Liverpool's Cavern Club. And their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 goes down in history as perhaps the most impactful rock performance ever.
But it became clear very quickly that there was little The Beatles could do in a live setting that would satisfy their creative impulses. Travel from city to city and play the three-chord singles for fans screaming so hard that they couldn't even hear the show — who needs it anymore? Not when there are strange new sounds to create back at Abbey Road studio.
The nit-pickers will say that the Candlestick Park show technically was not their last. The Fabs did play on a rooftop in London in 1969 (again, revolutionary), but that's more of a postscript on an amazing career. San Francisco in 1966 was the turning point that paved the way for the second half of that career to even occur.
In a special Dad Rock Minute video (above), Patrick Foster and Jim Lenahan, hosts of USA TODAY's Dad Rock podcast, discuss this major Beatles anniversary.
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