Credit: Far Out / Parlophone

How many solo concerts did John Lennon play?

Wed 15 January 2025 0:00, UK

By the time of their 1966 live show halt, The Beatles had clocked an exhaustive number of sets under their belts. Back when Pete Best was behind the drum kit and still sporting leather jackets, the group were already well accustomed to a punishing gig schedule, incessantly performing around the Merseyside area and discovering amphetamines to keep up with the hectic demand of the Hamburg club circuit.

After going ‘fab’ with Ringo Starr’s recruitment and donning their signature Chesterfield suits, Beatlemania was very much an eight-day-a-week commitment, playing over 800 shows across 90 cities around the world and performing sets which were trailing behind their growing creative ambitions. With touring fatigue finally getting the better of the band, their 1966 performance at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park would be The Beatles’ last conventional gig, save the impromptu rooftop set above the Apple Corps headquarters as famously documented on the Let It Be feature.

Some rudimentary efforts were made to coax The Beatles away from their touring celibacy to play the iconic Woodstock Music Festival in 1969. While the rest of the band had little interest, John Lennon reportedly entertained the idea of his appearance providing a guaranteed spot for his then Plastic Ono Band side-project largely fronted by Yoko, before visa complications dashed any such hopes.

Lennon was famously nonplussed about touring. “I wouldn’t mind doing it, but the organisation frightens me. I could probably earn a lot of money, which wouldn’t be a bad thing because all my money is tied up in England, and they won’t let me have it,” he stated on the thorny topic of performing. “I get lots of people wanting me to do things for charity, but usually when I show, it turns out the whole thing is a fiasco, and I end up running the whole show.”

“Not many people know how to put a show on properly: most of them think that if they get a famous name, he’ll call everybody he knows, and they won’t have to worry about anything else,” he added. “Now people ring me and they think that if I say ‘Yes’ then Dylan, George and God will appear, too. If Yoko appears anywhere, they automatically expect me to appear, so I now say screw it for the time being.”

So, how many solo shows did John Lennon play?

Despite his towering stature in the music world, Lennon didn’t play a great deal. Half of his live sets were either TV spots, artistic ‘happenings’ or cameo appearances for Elton John and Harry Nilsson. Concerning conventional concerts, Lennon only played ten, most of them benefit gigs.

He notably played two in a day at New York’s Madison Square Garden in 1972, and Some Time In New York City‘s live half featured a 1971 collaboration with Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, who’d later criticise the LP’s mix.

His stance on touring softening by the time of Double Fantasy‘s release, Lennon had officially announced two months before his assassination plans of a series of live shows, even toying with famous stage architect Mark Fisher having a hand in shaping the experience. Never coming to pass, it may be that Lennon was on a whole new chapter of his career.