One night in 1966, The Beatles played their last song to a paying audience
Were you lucky enough to be alive in the few short years The Beatles spent actually out on the road? Count yourself as special, because in hindsight, not that many did.
The Fab Four’s decision to stop touring and performing live in 1966 would have been impossible to compute at a time, let alone making it an unfathomable decision now, knowing that they still had a selection of their most acclaimed albums still to come. But it was testament to their foresight, not just as the biggest band in the world, but as true musicians, not to hedge their bets.
Of course, the picky among you will be quick to point out that The Beatles’ last performance wasn’t technically in 1966; rather, three years later, with their surprise rooftop set at the Apple Corps building in London. Well done, five gold stars for you. But in terms of concerts as they are most conventionally known, the final billing did come on August 29th, 1966.
The show, however, could have been seen as somewhat of a damp squib to go out on in a lot of respects. Having already decided they were calling it quits live, the North American tour was a slog for the band, amid threats of being burned at the stake. As such, when they arrived at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, it was less of a celebration and more a case of getting the job done.
For anyone who had waited years to see the Liverpudlian legends in the flesh and finally get their hands on a ticket, hearing them play only 11 songs must have been a bit of a let-down, to say the least. On top of that, the last song The Beatles played to their adoring fans wasn’t even one of their own.
With just 25,000 seats being filled out of a 42,000-capacity stadium, it’s clear to see that nobody’s heart was really in it. After playing a pretty bland setlist of old album tracks and the occasional single, their very last swan song was a perhaps unexpected cover of ‘Long Tall Sally’ by Little Richard, paying homage to their 1964 EP.
But the real kick in the teeth was this: for all the grandeur and significance the occasion would later go on to receive, those final enduring moments weren’t even recorded anywhere. It had been the responsibility of the band’s press manager, Tony Barrow, to make a cassette of the show, but being slightly inattentive, he didn’t turn the tape over, and as such, the recording ends halfway through the last tune.
In a setlist that barely lasted half an hour, it was hardly the roaring high one might expect a band like The Beatles to have gone out on. Interestingly, however, John Lennon reportedly started to play the beginning of ‘In My Life’ before promptly giving up and leaving the stage. Was there just a hint of regret about the spectacle that should have been?
The rooftop performance righted some of those wrongs in that respect, but with the band on the teetering brink of their chasmic break-up by that point, it wasn’t exactly a happy conclusion. The Beatles had a complex relationship with performing, but with over 1,400 previous shows to pick from, they could have left the stage on a better note.
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