August
29, 2005
On
this day in 1966, The Beatles played the last concert of their career at San
Francisco's Candlestick Park. It was exactly four years after Ringo first joined
the group, and six years since they'd made their first appearance as The Beatles,
at the Jacaranda in Liverpool. Back then they could scarcely get a paying local
gig or attract an audience that cared. By August of 1966, they had traveled
and conquered the globe, playing to sellout crowds across Europe, North America,
Australia and the Far East. They had shattered world records for concert attendance,
product sales and television audiences, and become cinematic legends. On the
downside, their music was maturing faster than live sound technology and the
teenyboppers could keep up. They couldn't perform most of their latest material
live, not that anyone could've heard it over the screaming kids. The novelty
of holding the keys to the world had worn off, and reality had set in. From
their vantage point, the world had become a sea of rabid fans, murderous detractors,
obnoxious aristocrats, and bad musicianship. It was now unhealthy to continue
touring amid daily pandemonium wherever they went, and it was pointless to maintain
the innocent, harmless goofball image they had outgrown.
The decision to retire from the stage had many benefits. Now that they weren't tied to a schedule packed with public appearances, their music evolved at an unprecedented rate. So did the quality and complexity of their recordings, as their ideas stretched the limits of studio technology and challenged conventional barriers at every turn. Having effectively shed their previous identity and closed the door on the nostalgic past, they were now in a position to lead a new progressive cultural movement, one that was already underway and might very well have passed them up had they chosen to stay their course. Now that they were less accessible and no longer coming to a town near you, they became more intriguing, more iconic, than they had ever been before.
Quitting the road also gave the Beatles something they hadn't had in years: a life. George Harrison took immediate advantage of his newfound freedom and emersed himself in Eastern spirituality and Indian culture, which he had felt calling him for over a year. Paul McCartney found time to compose, support London's art community and enjoy its nightlife scene, specifically the Bag O' Nails club, where he met his wife Linda. Ringo Starr, already married with one son, Zak (now drumming for Oasis and The Who), fathered two more kids with his wife Maureen. While shooting the film "How I Won the War" in Spain, John Lennon donned a pair of National Health spectacles that became his trademark for eternity. Upon returning from Spain, John was free to visit the Indica Gallery on November 9th, where he would meet Yoko Ono for the first time.
The farewell concert of August 29th was not planned to be so; It wasn't made public until after the fact. But the decision had been coming for a long time, encouraged heavily by George and John. Paul was always the most keen on playing live, but by now even he was convinced it was time to hang it up. It was an abrupt end to an incredible era that had reached its status peak a year earlier at Shea Stadium, and reached its creative peak with the recording of Revolver. It was only fitting that the last Beatles tour should coincide with the last Beatles album. Even though the group would produce six more chart-topping, barrier-busting albums over the next three years, history would prove that after 1966, John, Paul, George and Ringo had ceased to be Beatles, and become four solo artists bound together by contract.