The Beatles, Live: The Rooftop Concert

I have never seen the Beatles perform live; it was always a video (or film, or a telecast of a film) of a live performance.  These days, "Live" seems to mean a performance before an audience.  (Even that seems a little ambiguous, because there are always people listening in while a studio album is being recorded, but I don't consider that a live performance.)  Perhaps a "live" performance is one where there is no possibility of re-recording any part of the performance.

Coming then to the video recordings of live performances, hardly any of the Beatles performances I have seen are anywhere as pleasing as that last crazy performance on the rooftop of some recording studio (you can Google it, if you want; it's probably Studio 2, or something like that) in London.  We know now that it halted traffic on the street below, and ended with the Police coming onto the rooftop to negotiate with the Beatles people to stop the performance.

Evidently it was a cold day, and John and George refused to go out onto the roof initially, but they later did, wearing cold-weather outer-wear, which someone called women's coats, and they may well be.  John and George were wearing furs, Ringo was wearing a parka of some sort, but Paul seemed to wear only a woolen jacket.  Amazing, especially since in the US, certainly, a rooftop would usually be a windy place.  Still, the video of this performance is still my memory of the Beatles as they were in the last several months of 1969, a fabulous year for many, many reasons.

If you've been a Beatles fan, especially if you had been one in the sixties, you would have realized, (assuming you'd followed popular music before the Beatles were famous, and seen their competing acts on TV) that the Beatles were super tailored; cut and pressed and neatly turned out (one of the contributions of Brian Epstein).  However, though initially their true personalities were held under control by their 'handlers', only bursting out of their cages intermittently, by 1969 we knew what they were really like (to the extent that it was possible), and the Rooftop Concert was them, being themselves; amused no end at the quandary the Police were in; pleased at the number of people who had stopped everything to watch them; probably pleased that their impromptu performance was coming off so well, though they had rehearsed it pretty well, and some of the songs were ones they had sung for years, e.g. 'One after 909,' and so on.  What a wonderful way to bring down the curtain!  I would not have it any other way.  (On YouTube there is a set of videos where the Beatles had evidently tried to do a complete concert on the roof of the Liverpool Central Library; I didn't watch them all through; I think perhaps the mood was not as exciting as the original performance in London.  Must find out more.)

The performance list is:

00:11 Get Back
03:22 Don't Let Me Down
06:57 I've Got A Feeling
10:39 One After 909
13:42 Dig A Pony
17:36 Get Back (reprise, and John announcing "We want to thank you on behalf of the Group and Ourselves . . .")

One of the things that delighted me the most was to see John playing lead guitar on Get Back, and the tiny glimpse of Billy Preston, freezing in the cold (around 18:47).

There is a lot more information about the circumstances surrounding the performance at
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/beatles-famous-rooftop-concert-15-things-you-didnt-know-58342/
many of them not having to do with the music.

Archipelago