Beatles rooftop concert anniversary is this week

FLASHBACK RADIO with Chuck Reynolds

It was during this week, 52 years ago on January 30th, 1969, that the Beatles climbed up five stories to the roof of their Apple Building at 3 Saville Row, in London, England, during the lunch hour to play their first and last “live” concert since August 29, 1966 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

This roof top show was cut abruptly after 42 minutes, due to the fact that, along with being a damp and cold afternoon with blowing winds, there was mounting pressure coming through complaints from businesses on the streets below regarding the large traffic jams and swelling crowds and, most importantly, the London bobbies finally getting up to the roof to physically pull the plug if the Beatles didn’t stop.

Along with the Beatles, Billy Preston joined the ‘live’ session, playing electric piano on “Dig A Pony”, “I’ve Got a Feeling”, “Don’t Let Me Down” and “One After 909”. No one knew at the time that the Beatles were only 14 months away from permanently breaking up. But, in his effort to keep the band glued together, Paul McCartney had always envisioned them doing a ‘live’ concert show in its latter years as sort of a morale booster.

Although that never happened, the ‘live’ mini-show that appears the following year in the movie “Let It Be”, confirms the band could still perform admirably and that they all actually enjoyed doing it.

While the band played together that afternoon, it should be noted that the rocky history in the four weeks leading up to that day indicated there wasn’t ever going to a be ‘live’ performance. But, because of pressure from Paul and John, George and Ringo finally came around and agreed to be a part of it.

Originally, this ‘live” show finale was okayed by all four Beatle members earlier in the month when they began filming a TV documentary with movie director Michael Lindsay-Hogg that was going to be called “Get Back” and primarily show them rehearsing and working on new songs for their upcoming “Get Back” album.

However, the filming of this documentary that began over the first two weeks of January at Twickenham Studios, before going back to their Apple studios, proved to be hellish for the Beatles.

Mainly because, for the past three years, they generally rehearsed and recorded their music in the evenings through the wee hours of the morning. But here, they were slated to show up to film at 10:00 am until 5:00 pm each day in a huge, cold and barren building with spotlights shining down on them. They were filmed in a time frame that wasn’t anywhere near where they usually worked and produced their best music.

No wonder they weren’t smiling and joking the way they often would when working at Abbey Road. You could say all four noses were out of joint. Harrison even quit coming to these rehearsals in the second week. And anyone who has seen the “Let It Be” movie from 1970 may have found the sections filmed at Twickenham particularly on edge or depressing, and the boys simply looking uncomfortable and downright miserable at times.

But all was not lost. They finally got back to their basement at Apple studios on January 22nd where producer George Martin had arranged to lend them recording equipment from Abbey Road Studio to be used and mostly engineered by Glyn Johns.

However, he wasn’t happy with the final production of the recordings collected and they were all put away, along with the reels of film to be later remixed by Phil Spector and released in 1970.

Now, moving forward, Academy Award winning director and serious Beatles fan, Sir Peter Jackson, announced two years ago, on the 50th Anniversary of the Beatles roof top show, that he would be re-editing and reproducing the “Let It Be” film.

With 140 hours of audio tape and 55 hours of unseen movie film available from 1970, he was astonished at how the original movie presented such a negative and unhappy view of the Beatles when the unused film and audio he reviewed was so different.

Jackson was planning on having this movie released in 2020 but with the COVID pandemic and restrictions, everything’s been delayed and he is hoping to have the film released sometime this August under its new title “The Beatles – Get Back”.

If you would like to see a five-minute excerpt from this film, simply go online to YouTube or Google and enter “The Beatles Get Back”. I’m sure you’ll like it.