The Beatles helped to shape the modern music business. Their renown and impact are unrivaled over 60 years after the band’s beginnings. Today, they still utilize their recording skills, and their songs are considered among the best of all time. Aspiring bands look to them as a model. Amid the continuous adoration of the Fab Four, people have frequently missed their live presence.
Despite history’s preference for their studio work, their influence permeates every practice room and studio, as well as stages worldwide. Understandably, their records have come to eclipse their touring ability. The band barely spent half of their tenure on the road. They performed from 1962 to 1966 before retiring to the studio.
As a result of exhaustion and several contentious situations on their final tours, the band decided to call it quits. They only performed one more famous gig on a London rooftop in 1969. With such a brief live appearance, it’s not surprising that their massive recorded hits outweighed their live presence. But that doesn’t diminish the brilliance and connection they displayed onstage.
Between their regular visits to the Cavern Club and their famed last concert, which was recorded in the documentary film Let It Be, The Beatles were as beautiful and mesmerizing live as they were on record. They were so in tune on stage, according to drummer Ringo Starr, that it felt like they had a telepathic link.
“I’m always so excited when we get the chance to play together,” he said in an interview with The Q. “When we were playing together we were the best band in the land.” Few would dare to dispute such an assertion, which can only be confirmed by their physical presence. “I don’t care what anyone says, and we were friends.” “It was almost psychic,” Ringo Starr continued.
“I’d be playing drums with my eyes closed, the headphones on, and I’d know John was going somewhere, and I’d drum in that,” the drummer said of vocalist and guitarist John Lennon. And I’d keep it together while they went insane and bring it back.” It’s a connection you can see in the band’s live footage, which sounds as smooth and brilliant as the recordings.
Though Starr joked about the band’s psychic link, their polished performance was the result of years of practice while Starr was still a member of Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. “There were two bands, and on weekends, we would do 12 hours between two bands”. He revealed, adding, “We all admitted that’s really what made us who we are”. We figured out how to accomplish it.”
Their hard work paid off, as they became the self-proclaimed and universally acclaimed finest band in the nation, both onstage and off. Relive The Beatles’ famous last rooftop performance in the video below.
