Time for a pop quiz: Which band released 12 studio albums in eight years, sold a total of 545 million records two years after breaking up in 1970, but have since sold over one billion records?
The answer is, unsurprisingly, the Beatles. However, that success came at a price—namely, the death of a damn good live act.
If you know your Beatles trivia, you’re bound to be a little confused by that statement. When the Beatles stopped touring in 1965, they were known more for shows in which Paul’s cherubic face or George’s well-defined cheekbones rendered adolescent girls unconscious than for an outstanding musical experience. Indeed, the Beatles stopped doing gigs—during which shrieking girls drowned out their own playing—because the very act of playing live became unbearable.
However, if you happened to have been strolling down the streets of Hamburg’s red light district in 1960, an outstanding live musical experience by the Beatles was only a cover charge away.
From August to November 1960, the Beatles played residencies at several clubs in that verdant German town. The nights were grueling, often including 12-hour sets played to drunken Germans still reeling from a six-year event that had ended 15 years prior. It wasn’t the easiest way to start out as a band, but it was crucial to the Beatles’ development. The sweaty rock-’n’-roll energy that those depressed Germans so desperately needed—and so boisterously demanded—jettisoned the band from sloppy mediocrity to a tight, kinetic unit of enthusiasm and virtuosity.
That energy attracted the attention of Brian Epstein, the man who, as the Beatles’ manager, would render them a marketable commodity and engineer their unmatched commercial success.
The Beatles are remembered only for their justifiably lauded original material—indeed, only one unbearably static-filled recording exists of a Hamburg gig that, in typical fashion, included only covers—but that’s a shame.
One could argue that the band’s decision to stop touring left the world better off in the long run. The money the Beatles had accrued by 1965 and the newfound free time made it possible to painstakingly produce a phenomenal canon of records from 1966 to 1970.
However, a band is often more than a studio creature, and musicians are ultimately performers. In 1960, the Beatles’ career reached a certain apex, one they enjoyed when they had it and sorely missed when their success prevented them from simply playing a gig. The sadness of that fate is clear in their famous 1970 rooftop show. They didn’t play an unannounced show on a roof just for the novelty of it—they wanted to relive the live experience in an environment where, free from the screaming obsessives, they could actually hear one another playing.
In that sense, one of the Beatles’ most famous—and infamous—acts of musical rebellion was, in actuality, a desperate attempt to recapture the past.
Unsurprisingly, it was a damn good show.
Girl, if you need someone, get Chelsea in your life, and rub her soul at cpaige@staff.georgetownvoice.com
