Were more songs ever planned for the Beatles rooftop concert?

We all know that the rooftop concert ended abruptly due to threats from the police, but what I was wondering is were more songs planned to be played before it abruptly finished or was it always going to be the five songs that they did actually play?

"Get Back" was played three times and "Don't Let Me Down" and "I've Got a Feeling" were played twice, making me think that there wasn't anything else planned and so they had to start repeating songs. But it would have been interesting if other songs were planned to be played, such as "Two of Us" and "Let It Be", or even songs that were later recorded during the Abbey Road sessions or songs that eventually ended up as solo songs.

And on that note, was it ever planned that George would sing a song, or did he choose not to/wasn't allowed to? If he had sung a song, would it have been "For You Blue" or something else?

 

All I know is that George had said at some point that since his own songs had not been rehearsed enough or properly, he'd rather not have them in the set at all for the event.

However, the lapsteel guitar appears on some photos of the rooftop, in the back, so they might had considered doing For You Blue after all...

 

John played the lapsteel guitar right? Would have been nice seeing the Beatles play a George song live.

 

Your first statement may or may not be all that true. A lot of people assume the rooftop ended abruptly due to threats from police because that is what the movie portrayed. But that scene seems to be somewhat orchestrated. Yes, the police probably came up to Apple of their own volition, but it seems clear that The Beatles knew they were coming or perhaps even figured they would come. (Witness the film cameras on BOTH sides of the Apple front door when the police knock. How would they even know who was at the front door and be ready with a camera to film it?)

And as you say, given that they ran several of the songs 2 and 3 times indicates that they didn't have anything else in the lineup for the performance. There are a few other unused instruments on the roof so there is always the possibility. But given how cold it was, John complaining about his fingers being cold, I doubt they would have played anything more.

Perhaps someone more intimately familiar with the story and the tapes from the day or two prior to the roof performance where they are discussing what they will do might be able to shed a more informed opinion than me, who is just going on conjecture. Doug Sulpy or Ray Schweighardt...are you out there?

 

That's kind of what I suspected to be honest... I know there's a chance they would have played more songs but the fact they repeated some suggests otherwise.

I assume either they hadn't rehearsed the other songs enough to play them in full in the concert, or they just didn't feel like playing them.

Also as for "For You Blue", I just looked up some information on it and it says that it was one of the songs Billy Preston didn't play on. So had they decided to play the song, Billy would presumably just be jamming along.

 

Is that an extra piano or organ in the upper left? John laptop steel is on a chair behind his amp. Also looks like a spare guitar in a case at the left of photo.
What song would that be for? And why duplicate a piano as Billy was already playing one? (I think that's the edge of Billy's piano on the bottom of the photo)

 

Old Brown Shoe? Note that it's behind George as well.

 

I would have loved to hear them play that!
But while that song was introduced during the Let It Be sessions, I don't think it was really developed enough to perform. And again, Billy was already there on piano. Maybe it was just a duplicate in case of emergency? Did Mal have other guitars available just off-stage in the even of mal-function (pun intended)?

 

If I was John, I would have asked to do 'Politician' by Cream.

 

It seems they rehearsed "I ME MINE" enough since it is included on the LP.That would most likely be the only George song at the time that would have flowed well with the other material. Not to get too OT, but as I was looking at the above photo it just dawned on me that that is a constructed stage they are playing on! There had to be some plan to play on the roof at least a week before it happening to ensure the materials for its construction were available.

 

Not often seen photo of all four Beatles plus Billy all in one frame. And a lot more people on the roof than we are accustomed to seeing!

 

The guitar on the top left corner could have been an acoustic guitar for For You Blue, which would make sense given the lap steel guitar is also present.

 

Yes, there was another thread here about 6 months ago or so where I posted quotes from Ken Mansfield (Head of Apple Records in USA and the guy in the white coat sitting next to Yoko on the roof). He talks about how the Beatles made the decision to play on the roof a day or two before and sent him and Mal out to get ladies nylons to cover the microphones and Mal had to get the long boards to cover the roof and the scaffolding to prevent people from falling off the roof. I can't imagine the difficulty of hauling those boards (which look to be about 8 or 10 feet long) up the several levels of stairs to get them to the roof.

 

The previous day (or maybe two days?) before...checking out the roof and setting up camera angles.
Note there is no barricade off the front of the roof and no boards.

 

Great photo! Paul seeing everything through. It seems like it was a warmer day.

 

Right, it's in the film (and also pictured in the Get Back book). "Go, Johnny, go!"

 

Strange considering it was a January day in London in the long, cold, lonely 1968-9 winter.

 

There's also an acoustic guitar microphone set up near Paul.

 

Two of Us?

 

Yes, probably.

 

I looked for a daily weather report for 29 and 30 January 1969, but couldn't find anything specific.
I did find this overall report for January, indicating that it was colder and rainy earlier in the month, but extremely mild during the latter part of the month. Seems Jan. 22 it was near 60 degrees F (15 C). Obviously colder on January 30, but I couldn't find a report for that day.

It was a very mild month with mean temperature - Midlands, everywhere well above average. In the east and southern England it was about 2 deg C warmer than normal and elsewhere mean temperature was between 1 and 2 deg C above average. A number of places had the mildest January for many years. It was the mildest January for 48 years at Hampstead, for 21 years at Oxford and for 20 for years, apart from 1957, at Ross-on-Wye. Aberdeen Airport had its mildest January since records began in 1946. The period 20th to 26th was exceptionally mild in most places. For a few days around the 22nd, mean daily temperature was about 7 deg C above average in some places in the south. On the 21st, the temperature reached 15°C at Torquay, and Starcross (Devon) and, on the 22nd, Camden Square (London): This is the highest temperature at Camden Square during this century.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/assets/mohippo/pdf/c/8/jan1969.pdf

 

Completely off topic, but that's a lot of 'ironmongery' bolted to the chimney! Three TV aerials: Band I, Band III and Group A. Don't need all that lot nowadays - the Group A one would be enough.

 

There seems to be a poor, perhaps psychedelically colored, keyboard instrument standing on its side, right behind Ringo... ??

 

My understanding is that only the harder-sounding tracks were ever intended to be played during the rooftop performance, with the repeated songs likely a result of someone not being entirely happy with the initial takes. Later, the group were heard talking about how they'd then record the quieter new compositions written for the Get Back project downstairs in the Apple studio, with the results of these two sessions being compiled together into the final album. Of course that didn't quite work out, but it's interesting to see what could have been...

 

I often thought they played most of the songs twice because of getting a better take result for the album.
I less think there was lack of song choices. The band just wanted to finish that 'gig' soon enough because: The weather was cold at the day and they played for 45 minutes. The police came inbetween, etc.
If they would've performed there around Summer maybe they played a few minutes longer and the police would've been more aggressive which would be more authentic for the film.^^