The Beatles live history

I only just started reading about The Beatles live history. No tours after 1966 and their setlist typically consisted of just 11 songs. Also it seems they didn't play their biggest hits but rather rock and roll songs from the early part of their career such as Roll Over Beethoven.

Maybe if the Beatles reformed they would have done a Greatest hits type tour but it's sad to me that their most iconic songs were never performed live.

 

If only . . .

 

While The Beatles always had some cover songs in their live sets, per my trusty copy of The Beatles Live! there was never a year from 1963 through 1966 where they had more covers than originals in their performance repertoire.

Depends, of course, on what you consider "their most iconic songs" to be. If they're post early-1966 songs, this is true. But from 1963-1966, they performed the vast majority of their single A-sides in concert at some point.

 

Prolly sick of playing She Loves You & I Want To Hold Your Hand.....

 

I don’t think they can reform at this point.

 

Wrong. They played all their big hits. They were hardly going to play Hey Jude at a concert in 1965 when they didn't write or record it until 1968 were they?
Roll Over Beethoven they only played at gigs between November 1963 and September 1964.
their setlist was typically 12 songs.

 

I think the evidence is there on YouTube that, whilst they certainly tried to progress their live set to include the Rubber Soul era tracks, it wasn't easy to replicate these songs. All their performances were done with no monitors for them to hear what they were doing and they were relying on 100 watt amps and, for the stadiums, often a megaphone style PA system.

It's no wonder they packed the live stuff in.

 

This is true. Although it's not like it really mattered since virtually no one was really listening.

 

Surprisingly, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" came and went in their live sets rather quickly.

 

The Beatles played these songs (mostly huge hit singles) in concert for these periods during their time as touring bill-toppers:

Please Please Me January 63-February 64 [13 months]
From Me To You April 63-February 64 [10 months]
Twist and Shout May 1963-August 1965 [26 months]
I Saw Her Standing There April 1963-June 1964 [14 months]
She Loves You August 1963-September 1964 [13 months]
I Want to Hold Your Hand December 1963 - September 1964 [10 months]
Can't Buy Me Love April 1964- August 1965 [16 months]
Long Tall Sally February 1964-September 1964, April-June 1965, and August 1966 [11 months total]
A Hard Day's Night July 1964- August 1965 [11 months]
I Feel Fine December 1964- August 1966 [20 months]
Ticket to Ride April 1965-December 1965 [8 months]
Help! August 1965- December 1965 [4 months]
Yesterday December 1965-August 1966 [9 months]
Day Tripper December 1965-August 1966 [9 months]
We Can Work it Out December 1965 [1 month]
Nowhere Man December 1965-August 1966 [9 months]
Paperback Writer June 1966-August 1966 [3 months]

So I want to Hold Your Hand stayed in the act for an average time in The Beatles' set, under a year.

 

This book doesn't get into worrying about what songs they didn't play, but is a great reference work regarding their concert history.

 

As I noted earlier in the thread, this is still my go-to reference for live Beatles matters. I suspect there may have been a bit of new information that has come to light since it was written, but it still seems to be pretty accurate.

 

Having known zero about the Beatles live history I just assumed they toured up until they split like say ABBA or Queen. It's a shame, listening to the Red and Blue albums that they never regularly performed songs like:
‘You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away’
‘Drive My Car’
‘Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)’
‘Michelle’
‘In My Life’
‘Girl’
‘Eleanor Rigby’
‘Yellow Submarine’
‘Strawberry Fields Forever’
‘Penny Lane’
‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’/‘With A Little Help From My Friends’
Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds
‘A Day In The Life’
‘All You Need Is Love’
‘I Am The Walrus’
‘Hello, Goodbye’
‘The Fool On The Hill’
‘Magical Mystery Tour’
‘Lady Madonna’
‘Hey Jude’
‘Revolution’
‘Back In The USSR’
‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’
‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’
‘Get Back’
‘Don’t Let Me Down’
‘The Ballad Of John And Yoko’
‘Old Brown Shoe’
‘Here Comes The Sun’
‘Come Together’
‘Something’
‘Octopus’s Garden’
‘Let It Be’
‘Across The Universe’
‘The Long And Winding Road’

Nowadays acts will perform 18-20 songs a show and will generally play a selection new songs alongside hits. It's odd for me that they would play a hit song for a year then just stop playing it when they had another hit. Maybe it was a 60's thing I don't know.

 

It was more of a Beatles thing. As you know, their style and sound changed throughout their career and they did the same in concert as far as they could. They couldn't hear themselves play because of the screaming and played fewer and fewer gigs because of that. The Beatles mainly did new songs as they kept on having hits, and didn't need to rely on older hits (even from one year ago!) Concerts in the 1960s were also "package tours", that is, one big name to top the bill, and up to 7 smaller acts, each doing 10-15 minutes, 3 or 4 or 5 songs! The 60s was a very fast-paced decade. For example, The Beatles played their first gig as Top of the Bill in February 1963, and their last gig in August 1966. Only three and a half years!

 

Well, except for Baby's in Black which it seemed like they played for 5 years or so (j/k)

But, yeah, the early 60s were a different world for concerts in general (not just the Beatles) compared to what came later, trying to compare it to even the late 60s is a fools errand.

 

If The Beatles had ever reunited and played a gig in the 1970s I fully expect they'd have done Baby's in Black! They seemed to love doing it!

But yes, I only listed a few songs, they did many more, like She's A Woman, Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby, All My Loving, Dizzy Miss Lizzy, I Wanna be Your Man, I'm Down, Rock and Roll Music, I'm a Loser, Money, etc, etc

 

If you're talking of an average over the years in question then of course this is true.

If you look at specifics ... on the Helen Shapiro tour in early 1963 they were still doing more covers than originals.

 

Very highly recommended book to anyone interested in The Beatles' live history. Great!

 

Yeah, but I think it's no longer available.

If you've got it, could you check what it says about those early Beatles sets on the 1963 Helen Shapiro tour?

Thanks.

 

For the Helen Shapiro tour February 2 - March 3, 1963:

Chains
Keep Your Hand Off My Baby
A Taste Of Honey
Please Please Me
Love Me Do (prepared alternate song)
Beautiful Dreamer (prepared alternate song)

 

Thanks. This confirms what my local newspaper says when they appeared in Bradford on February 2nd 1963. They played those first four songs so that means three covers and just one original.

 

I always thought it was a huge shame they stopped playing live precisely at the point that sound systems and lightshows started to improve massively.

 

It's astonishing to imagine such songs coming so fast and furious.

 

Its interesting that on that last US tour they swapped out the oldie of Long Tall Sally for their original I'm Down; but the real indicator of their attitude about the tour was that, for the first time on a big tour, they didn't try and add any new material to the set list. I don't know what they would have tried; perhaps Yellow Submarine or Dr. Robert could have worked.

 

The closest they came to performing new material was “Paperback Writer”, which was a golden oldie, having been released way back two and a half months before the US tour started .