The Beatles' final gig, on the rooftop at Apple Corps, January 30th 1969.

I assumed the broadcast was 4:3, but didn’t mention cropping bcz I also strongly suspected it was from 16mm, which pisces’ list does indicate

but I also have no idea if the original edit was done at widescreen, or on 16mm elements & then recomposited for theatrical

finally someone is using their clout to let the world know about the beatles

Used to be, you'd have to go to a pizza place to hear them.

Apparently there was some Beatles tribute band recreating this just across the road from where I work, at lunch time.

In Liverpool or London? There was supposedly something in Liverpool One.

Some wag over on the Hoffman forums suggests a new happier Let It Be reminds them of this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os6raCCmAFk

... sorry, London, on the roof of St Pancras Station, though I can't see any mention of it anywhere.

https://tucson.com/entertainment/music/tucson-bands-to-recreate-beatles-famous-and-final-london-rooftop/article_9935b3ec-7a4a-55eb-abb7-b046712f7968.html

It's crazy to me that the Simpsons barbershop quartet episode aired 24 years after the Beatles' rooftop gig, but it'll have aired 26 years ago this year.

Yeah that's a pretty crazy stat, that Simpsons ep feels like last week.

Interesting tidbit from Mark Lewisohn about the Twickenham footage.

@TheBeatles did it and now I’ve done it. An exhausting but exhilarating month’s work comes to an end. Finally I know how it was – and how I’ve been wrong in all my past writings. We’ve ALL had it wrong. Roll on Peter Jackson’s film and my Volume 3. #Twickenham #SavileRow #Jan69 pic.twitter.com/XhX2DrtCUU

— Mark Lewisohn (@marklewisohn) January 31, 2019

just put out Vol 2 already!

🎥 Peter Jackson has released an exclusive sneak peek of his upcoming documentary “@TheBeatles: Get Back” #TheBeatlesGetBack will open August 2021 with never seen before footage of the band during the recording sessions of ‘Let it Be’ in 1969! pic.twitter.com/nWwzeuHE8U

— sir paul mccartney 🎲 (@Page_SirPaul) December 21, 2020

The editing might overdo the "it was actually a happy time" but it's a nice video (if I mute it) and it LOOKS great.

Linda and Yoko just chattin’! Hard to believe this has all just been sat on a shelf for so long. Looks great.

eheh yeah, and Yoko SMILING during these sessions !

omg that cut straight thru my cynicism

Looks good, but I really hope the film includes the lengthy feedback excursion, accompanied by Yoko, that began after George left in a huff.

That McCartney power stance at the start of "Get Back" is quite something.

Marty Dibergi looking good!

omg that cut straight thru my cynicism

I could watch a full 36-hours of this stuff. Looks amazing. Mind you, I've always kind of been on Yoko's side and everything, but it is really fucking weird how she's just sitting there all the time. I always imagined that she was just watching in the control room or something - didn't realise she was literally on a chair at John's elbow while the band played.

John and Paul looking genuinely fond of each other! George smiling! A lot!

all done with CG knowing Jackson

I often grow weary of the large-looming Beatles legend, so it’s nice to short circuit all that and just watch them in action.

all done with CG knowing Jackson

― Number None

They haven't inserted the cave trolls yet.

This looks very enjoyable, though I don't really care about that album - if it was Abbey Road, on the other hand...

i mean, there are prob some abbey road tracks in the mix. "maxwell's silver hammer" and "octopus' garden" promintently featured in the let it be movie (maybe this is bad news for some people)

I always imagined that she was just watching in the control room or something - didn't realise she was literally on a chair at John's elbow while the band played.

And when she was recovering from a car accident, her hospital bed was brought into the studio during the Abbey Road sessions.

though now i'm waiting for some beatlehead itt to inform me those were the only abbey road tracks in the mix during the get back project, i don't actually know xp

The Let It Be sessions basically mutated into the Abbey Road sessions, to an extent.

echoing AlXTC, does make it seem a bit like the movie is going to be "The Making of Get Back: the Beatles' Happiest Most Wonderful Time" but still, always thrilled to see good quality footage of the excellent band the Beatles playing their very very good music.

xxp

Some of the anecdotes in Craig Brown's 150 Glimpses of The Beatles paint Yoko in somewhat creepy, stalker-ish light. Tony Bramwell describes her as a "little black-clad figure" who would show up uninvited at Kenwood throughout 1967 asking for John. After Cynthia would turn her away, Yoko would seem to be leaving. But hours later Cynthia would look again and Yoko would still be at the end of the drive staring longingly at the house. *queue Hammer soundtrack*

Well yeah that sounds like someone in love, to me.

The teaser was fun. It's telling that most of the fun footage comes from the Apple Studio sessions. If you listen only to the Twickenham sessions, everything negative about the Get Back sessions seems to be true, but the change in scenery helped immensely - getting the hell of the Twickenham was the first thing they agreed on when they got their shit back together.

Right. Maybe that's why he went through all those contortions- not a trailer, not an excerpt, etc.

God, that green suit of Ringo's at 5:26..."If I had a million dollars (if I had a million dollars), well I'd buy you a green suit (but not a real green suit, that's cruel)"--actually, it looks pretty great.

Billy Preston is a very suave presence.

Love Ringo's red polka dot shirt, too!

And George's pink stripy outfit.

That was my personal favorite.

I was talking to my Beatles-nut friends about the decision to literally put a smiling face on those sessions. Everyone seems so happy and friendly and fun, basically the opposite of "Let It Be." My friend theorized that "Let It Be," released in the wake of their breakup, sort of intentionally reflected, even exaggerated, the prevailing mood, but his first reaction was that he still thought these new scenes (at least as presented) exhibited some conscious historical revisionism. I mean, George called the sessions "the low of all-time" and John called them "hell ... the most miserable sessions on earth." Now to be fair, George and John were the most unhappy at that point and have been known for their own historical revisionism, but it can't be a coincidence that Paul et al. have kept "Let It Be" from being released again.

Then again, as noted on the pretty thorough wiki page, a few days after threatening to quit "Harrison invited keyboardist Billy Preston to the studio to play electric piano and organ. Harrison recalled that when Preston joined them, "straight away there was 100% improvement in the vibe in the room. Having this fifth person was just enough to cut the ice that we'd created among ourselves." So maybe things did get better and more amiable? Certainly given what's on the wiki, esp. about the history of Paul and Ringo suppressing the original film, this sounds like it's intended as a replacement. "The intention of the documentary is to provide a new level of insight into the band's dynamics during the album's creation, and is being made with the cooperation of McCartney, Starr, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison." In other words, white-washed for the sake of the brand. Personally, I prefer Lewisohn's warts and all approach, which he conspicuously has been constructing without input from the band, which he finds canned and unreliable at this point.

Sure, but if the received wisdom is sustained misery, then surely some happy moments, with or without Preston, help? I find it hard to believe Harrison and Lennon loathed every minute.

Well, if Harrison actually threatened to quit at a certain point, and Lennon was pretty strung out, the math might add up.

imo, at least from the cut of let it be i watched, the idea that it was an atmosphere of total misery is an overstatement

Hopefully someone does a 4 hour supercut to give a balanced view

The terrible editing and shoddy look of the images -- the film looks as if it were washed in nicotine -- didn't help.

The Let It Be I saw looked pretty miserable, iirc. Ringo was the only one who seemed happy and carefree, goofing with everyone. John and George were shooting daggers at Paul. There's a quote from Martin on the wiki about Abbey Road (the real miracle): "Martin stated that he was surprised when McCartney asked him to produce another album, as the Get Back sessions had been "a miserable experience" and he had "thought it was the end of the road for all of us." And I mean, they did break up shortly afterwards, anyway so clearly they *were* unhappy.

No one's saying they weren't! But, again, it couldn't have been 24/7. Like in a disintegrating marriage, there will be pockets of sunshine.

I've heard all of the non-music bits from the Jan '69 tapes that involve speech/dialogue/whatever, they've been knocking around for years in crystal clear quality, it's about 17 hours worth of just talk, so about a third of the overall taped footage. It's good-natured, sometimes boring, there's much aimless spitballing, technical talk, a lot of tense 'going round in circles' about the future and plenty of larks, japery, gossip etc. Comes as no shock that you could easily sift an hour-or-two of upbeat stuff from it, nor that you could alternatively make it look mostly a bit grim. The truth will end up being somewhere betwen the 2 films i guess.

The last people I would expect to paint the most accurate picture, however, are the surviving Beatles and their estates, though.

Something felt a bit off as I watched the trailer, a bit forced, but the reality falling somewhere in the middle makes sense.

Having been thru a separation, if someone had asked me how to edit footage of the last year of my marriage while it was ending I would have chosen the material which showed the reasons for separation. As a grieving and justification process.

yeah but they did that already. in another fifty-one years, you might be ready to look at some photos of the kinder moments in your latter times.

I heard somewhere, maybe from my Beatles nut friend, that the Anthology in the end was designed to be an easy, equitable way to get a heap of money to "the principals" (as I think they were collectively termed). So it served its purpose by, say, making Pete Best a millionaire.

George was open about doing the Anthology stuff because his manager had stolen all his money via HandMade, and fucked off to an island. (The year of Anthology, Harrison sued O'Brien for £16 million, only won £6.7 million, but continued to actually lose more money suing him in bankruptcy court.)

yeah but they did that already. in another fifty-one years, you might be ready to look at some photos of the kinder moments in your latter times.
For sure, which is why I offered it to explain the difference between LiB and this film.

ah!