In keeping with my last post on a rare unreleased Beatles concert, today I’m featuring not one but five complete and unreleased Beatles concerts (well, unreleased in their unaltered forms).

Today celebrates the 57th anniversary of The Beatles last paid public performance which took place at San Francisco’s famed Candlestick Park on August 29, 1966.  Since I was a mere seven months old my memories of that time are obviously a bit fuzzy.

So in celebration of this momentous event I thought I’d share a couple of underground CD sets that capture The Beatles in concert with the best live shows (in the U.S.) from their Beatlemania touring years of 1964-1966.

I have two superb sets by the His Masters Choice label that perfectly capture the frantic sounds of Beatlemania and the raw power and energy of The Beatles in concert as they took over the music world.

The first set features the three Beatles shows at the Hollywood Bowl (complete and unedited) from 1964 and 1965 which is probably the best recorded Beatles concert of the groups touring era. As an added bonus the famed Candlestick Park 1966 show is included as well and in the best possible sound quality.

(Note: the 1966 Candlestick concert was recorded on a cassette recorder in front of the stage by The Beatles press officer Tony Barrow at the suggestion of Paul McCartney. There is no multi-track quality recording. Even so the show is low-fi it’s certainly very listenable as the mic captured the concert at close range)

The other set is also a must hear as it features the true sound of The Beatles live at Shea Stadium in 1965 (this is the first time the unaltered live show has ever been issued) along with all the opening acts from the show as well. As an added bonus it also features the touched up re-recording of the Shea Stadium show that was featured on the 1967 TV special that was broadcast on television.

Many of you out there may say wait a minute, unreleased? Didn’t The Beatles Hollywood Bowl shows come out on CD a few years ago sounding really fantastic?

Well, yes they did but the “Live at the Hollywood Bowl” CD that came out in 2016 in lovely remixed sound courtesy of Giles Martin and Sam Okell featured only a selection of cuts from the three Hollywood Bowl concerts that were recorded and had the sound heavily worked on to make it sound more listenable.

The stupendous 2 CD set “Live at the Hollywood Bowl” features all three concerts in full with warts and all sound (there are a few songs on one of the 1965 shows that don’t feature vocals) and every stinking note as it happened.

That of course includes the din of over 18,000 screaming young fans which nearly drowns out The Beatles at times.

For historians these unaltered sets are a treat to hear as the complete shows, warts and all, are great to hear as it is a true document of the times and the full impact of The Beatles on a generation is evident and these shows really bring you front and center on what it was like to sit at a Beatles performance and experience it in the eye of the storm so to speak.

Plus the Candlestick Park show tucked on the end of this set is also a real treat as it documents the end of The Beatles live career and is the best example of how they sounded on the 1966 tour. The Beatles are putting in more of a performance at this show as compared to others on the tour as they know this may be the last time that they would play live in this Beatlemania type environment.

I’m fascinated by this show and despite it’s less than stellar sound it’s still a very enjoyable show and the best document of this last 1966 tour and fun to hear songs like “Day Tripper” and “Nowhere Man” played with real gusto as opposed to the much better recorded shows in Japan from earlier in 1966.

I must say though that the creme de la creme of these five shows is the actual audio from The Beatles most celebrated concert live at Shea Stadium in 1965.

I can see why the group felt the need to touch the sound up as the concert was not only recorded but it was filmed as well for a TV special and these early days of recording live shows could not have anticipated the chaos that over 55,000 Beatlemanics would have on the primitive recording equipment that captured this show.

When the show was broadcast in 1967 I’m sure the group preferred the much cleaner live presentation on display in front of millions but I have to say that I prefer the rawer sound of the real tapes as it’s just as exciting a show with the real sound and maybe even more fun to watch.

The slightly ragged sound of the real Shea audio fits the overwhelming feeling of chaos generated by the audience who are obviously taken by the whole spectacle of a Beatles show. And actually the sound of the show in this CD is really good and despite some flaws would make a great CD!

Complete contents of the two sets:

Live at the Hollywood Bowl

Disc 1:  Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, CA – August 23rd, 1964: 

Intro., Twist And Shout, You Can’t Do That, All My Loving, She Loves You, Things We Said Today, Roll Over Beethoven, Can’t Buy Me Love, If I Fell, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Boys, A Hard Day’s Night, Long Tall Sally. 

Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, CA – August 30th, 1965:

Intro., Twist & Shout, She’s A Woman, I Feel Fine, Dizzy Miss Lizzy, Ticket To Ride, Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby, Can’t Buy Me Love, Baby’s In Black, I Wanna Be Your Man, A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, I’m Down 

Disc 2:  Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, CA – August 29th, 1965: 

Intro., Twist & Shout, She’s A Woman, I Feel Fine, Dizzy Miss Lizzy, Ticket To Ride, Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby, Can’t Buy Me Love, Baby’s In Black, I Wanna Be Your Man, A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, I’m Down. 

Candlestick Park, San Francisco, CA – August 29th, 1966: 

Rock And Roll Music, She’s A Woman, If I Needed Someone, Day Tripper, Baby’s In Black, I Feel Fine, Yesterday, I Wanna Be Your Man, Nowhere Man, Paperback Writer, Long Tall Sally

The Beatles And The Great Concert At Shea

Disc 1, line recording: 

Introduction, Twist And Shout, She’s A Woman, I Feel Fine, Dizzy Miss Lizzy, Ticket To Ride, Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby, Can’t Buy Me Love, Baby’s In Black, Act Naturally, A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, I’m Down. 

Plus: King Curtis:  National Anthem, Intermezzo, Discotheque Dancers:  medley. King Curtis:  What I’d Say, The Branch, Soul Twist, Intermezzo.  Cannibal & The Headhunters:  Out Of Sight, Nau Ninny Nau, The Way You Do The Things You Do, Land Of 1000 Dances.  Brenda Holloway:  Shake/Satisfaction, I Can’t Help Myself, You Can Cry On My Shoulder, When I’m Gone

Disc 2: 

Sounds Incorporated:  Intermezzo, America, William Tell Overture, instrumental, In The Hall Of The Mountain Kings. 

Original 1966 BBC soundtrack: 

Introduction, Twist And Shout, I Feel Fine, Dizzy Miss Lizzy, Ticket To Ride, Act Naturally, Can’t Buy Me Love,  Baby’s In Black, A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, I’m Down. 

The Beatles Live At Shea described by erupting fans, part 1 and part 2

Anyway, just a quick glimpse of some superb documents of five Beatles live shows as they sounded at the time. These shows are a fun time capsule to the pop/rock world of The Beatles as the group’s story and performances grow ever more intriguing as the years go by.

Also, each of these two sets are comprised of groovy small hardbound books with lots of cool photos and liner notes as well as two discs each. Really each set is the final word on the Hollywood Bowl and Shea Stadium concerts with the added bonus of the Candlestick show to round things out making these two sets the perfect way to experience Beatlemania in all its glory.

As usual there are pictures above and below of these fantastic two sets.

Enjoy the Candlestick show if you find these discs or you find it online. It’s a gem of a show and well worth hearing The Beatles final bow as one of the most beloved and enduring acts of the 1960s. Fifty seven years is a long ago but even that amount of time has not diminished The Beatles contribution to pop culture.

Until next time be well and safe and see you soon!

It’s not often that something truly monumental sneaks out of the blue, arrives out of nowhere and takes your breath away. This week my friends, that’s just what’s happened.

You see I discovered the audio of a previously unknown live recording of The Beatles from April 1963 two days ago online and nearly fainted. The story broke earlier this year that the tape of this concert had been found but the odds of hearing it were slim to none in my mind as it wasn’t owned by The Beatles.

The concert was recorded by a then 15-year-old student at the Stowe School (a boys school in Buckinghamshire, England) named John Bloomfield who recorded it with a microphone set on the stage with The Beatles that was connected to a newly acquired reel-to-reel tape machine.

How on earth this tape remained a secret for almost sixty years is amazing but more amazing is that Bloomfield captured The Beatles at the precise moment they were about to explode onto the music scene in Britain and the world and had yet to downsize their stage show to just ten to twelve of their recent hits.

(Note: Bloomfield recently donated the tape of this show to the British Library where the public can make an appointment to hear it. I’m guessing that’s the source of the leak of the audio of this show. A Japanese bootleg CD of this performance has recently been released as well and the audio I discovered online is from that CD).

This amazing concert features several songs that The Beatles never recorded in the studio as well as 3/4 of the their recently released first album “Please Please Me”. Truly an astonishing find and a must listen for any Beatles fan.

Of course being a physical media guy I promptly burned myself a homemade CD of this concert with an understated but if I do say so myself a lovely cover and thus a new Beatles CD (albeit homemade) was born – “The Beatles – Live at Stowe School, April 4, 1963”.

Now the recording isn’t exactly in commercial release quality. The vocals at times are buried (the recording mike seems to be nearer an amp with more of the guitar prominent and the vocals distant) and some songs are distorted from the volume on stage but overall it’s a very listenable recording.

The CD is a really fun listen and what it does give you is the best record yet of how much of a shit hot live band The Beatles were and if anyone disputes that play them samples from this show and they might just change their mind.

The main benefit of this recording is that the audience is totally male thus no screaming to drown out the music and the pure testosterone and energy coming from the audience seems to have made The Beatles more energized and they put on one hell of a good show.

Below are my song by song first impressions of this long lost concert:

I Saw Her Standing There – the vocals were a little distant on this one but it had a nice punchy sound to it. Much like the BBC versions but with more energy. In fact energy is how I would describe this entire show – energy and electricity

Too Much Monkey Business – this is an absolutely blistering take on this song and much better than the BBC take and just a terrific performance. This really shows the power of the Beatles live in the early 60s

Love Me Do – another great rocking yet bluesy performance! It’s great to hear all the males in the audience clapping along and howling to this song. It really went over well and this sounds so good live, probably my favorite live version of this song. It still has that slightly different arrangement that was played by Pete Best which is fun to hear as well.

Some Other Guy – another absolutely blistering take on this song, The Beatles sound like a freight train out of control –  such a great performance

Misery – this actually comes to life more than any other version I’ve ever heard. It’s great hearing the raw guitar push this song along and quite frankly the male audience is so energetic and so overwhelming with their response it really pushes The Beatles performance to be even gutsier

I Just Don’t Understand – another terrific performance. The vocals are actually much more up front on this song as it’s not quite as loud and blistering as the others but it’s my favorite version of this song and is even better than the BBC performance. It just seems rawer

A Shot of Rhythm and Blues – a great performance! The vocals aren’t nearly as clear as the last song. The highlight of this song is George Harrison’s absolutely wicked guitar playing, just terrific

Boys – a great rocking version of this one and you can actually hear Ringo’s vocal pretty darn clearly, so good and raw

Matchbox – what a powerhouse performance. The vocals are hard to hear because this one’s much louder than the others so it drowns out the vocals but another energetic take with Ringo on vocals (I think)

From Me to You – more energy than other live performances and the vocals are much clearer on this than the last song. It’s a raw and a somewhat chunky (I couldn’t think of another word for it) version of this song

Thank You Girl – well this is by far the ballsiest version of this song I’ve ever heard. What really makes this good is having the guitar so in your face which electrifies the performance, terrific

Memphis Tennessee – well this is the rockiest version I’ve ever heard the Beatles do this song mainly because George Harrison’s guitar is so prominent. Man is it raw and lively – love it

A Taste of Honey – the vocals are very easy to hear on this take. It sounds much like the record and the BBC version but this may have the edge

Twist and Shout – it’s hard to believe that this version could be almost as rocking and blistering as the take on the record but wow a terrific performance of this one

Anna (Go to Him) – again because of the prominence of George’s guitar this song sounds more raw and into almost more of a punk style version, so good live

Please Please Me – probably the biggest audience reaction to this song. Obviously they like it they really know it and they howl and sing along all the way through, a great performance egged on by the crowd

The Hippy Hippy Shake – wow this is an absolutely blistering take on this song. This is by far my favorite version of this song I’ve ever heard by The Beatles they just sound out of control but in a good way

I’m Talking About You – wow this one is equally blistering as “Hippy Hippy Shake”, just out of control rocking. Anyone who ever says the Beatles weren’t good live needs to listen to this tape! This is just an absolutely blistering show.

Ask Me Why – standard performance of this song great to hear it live with so much energy but very much like the BBC versions

Till There Was You – very much like the Ed Sullivan performance with a little bit more energy. Great

Money (That’s What I Want) – because the guitar is so loud and blaring this is much more menacing version. It ‘s like the BBC and the album version only on steroids. Unfortunately it’s only a fragment of the song which is too bad but what we have is great

I Saw Her Standing There (reprise) – by request the Beatles go into a blistering take on this with the audience loudly singing along. This is complete and ends with screams for the audience perfect way to end an exquisite find of a concert. Of the two versions of this song in the show this one is a bit better – more energetic and you can hear the vocals a bit better as well.

I think the all male audience really gives this show a different energy to most of the live Beatles performances out there. The crowd is boisterous and interact with the group by yelling out requests and frequently chatting with them between songs.

You get to hear a lot of interaction with the crowd which is something that doesn’t exist on the professionally recorded Beatles shows like the Hollywood Bowl and Shea Stadium.

This concert recording is the closet we’ll get to hearing what a Beatles show at the Cavern Club sounded like unless of course some tape of one of those shows jumps out of the sky and lands online – you never know, who’d have thought this tape existed.

Well, that’s all for now.

This show is out there online in several places if you look for it. It’s not for the casual listener as it’s a rough recording but it’s historical nature is so great that hearing it is a complete pleasure and something I didn’t think would ever be heard and not just a mere fours months after it was announced that the tape was discovered.

I’ve read other folks online say the concert didn’t sound as good as the Star Club tapes but I disagree, I think it sounds on par with that tape. It’s such an incredible find that even though it’s a bit rough it’s still amazing to hear.

More blog posts to come and as usual have a great day and I hope you’re well.

See you soon!

Today I am in the mood for another blast from the past – shocker I know.

I have done this topic before but since you don’t see these very much I thought I’d share some more of my CD longboxes. I may have shown some of these before but this is a more in-depth look at some of the boxes.

Also, this time it’s just George Harrison and Ringo Starr boxes … so here we go.

I won’t go into what a longbox is – there are several of my past posts that describe them – so above you can see some of the groovy George and Ringo boxes that have graced my collection for oh say over thirty some years or so.

These boxes represent the cream of the crop of solo music by Harrison and Starr and as you can see they are filled with great graphics and bright colors and really take me back to that brief moment in time when CDs were king and the music industry was really delving into their back catalogs. Finding new CD gems on the shelf seemed like it would never end but alas here we are now in a streaming world by and large.

Of course for me I’m sad that that era is over but as I admire 45 picture sleeves from the 1960s and 1970s these longboxes are the 80s and 90s equivalent and are a fun thing to take out every now and again to reminisce about – that is if your a collector of course.

And for all the other collector nutjobs (like me) out there are also a few choice hype stickers as well to add to the fun.

Take a gander above at these beauties. My favorite ones tend to be the ones that incorporate the artwork to the longer format of the box but all of them are fun to look at – at least to me.

(Note: The generic black Apple box is for the CD of Ringo’s album “Goodnight Vienna”. I have a couple of generic Apple boxes. These came out toward the end of the longbox era.)

Well, that’s all for today. Just a quick tip back in time for those of us who are old enough to remember spending hours back in the day perusing store racks for the new CD reissues of your favorite albums.

More soon.

Until then be safe and well and see you soon!

“It’s about a guy going off to war. Frankly, it’s an anti-war song. It’s about a guy going to Clarksville, Tennessee, which is an army base if I’m not mistaken. He’s obviously been drafted and he says to his girlfriend, ‘I don’t know if I’m ever coming home.’ Considering that it was a Monkees song and the first one, I was always surprised that the record company even released it unless it just went right over their head.“ – Micky Dolenz talking to Rolling Stone about The Monkees first number one hit “Last Train to Clarksville”

Sometimes summer just goes by so quickly – and this year is no exception.

I haven’t been posting much lately so I thought I’d recap some of my music finds/adventures from this past summer. In this post I’m going to take a look at some groovy vinyl I found as well as a mostly anti-climatic journey I took this past May to a legendary musical city – Nashville, Tennessee.

After years of contemplating I finally made the seven hour trek by car to experience the sights and sounds of the legendary Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve heard so many good things about Nashville that I was eager to see what all the fuss was about and try not only some of the local music scene but some of the local food as well.

As an added bonus Clarksville, Tennessee was within an hours drive or so from Nashville and quite frankly I was just excited to see that city as Nashville. Why Clarksville you may ask?

Well according to the quote above from Micky Dolenz, Clarksville, Tennessee may have been the inspiration for The Monkees first number one hit “Last Train to Clarksville” which has always been one of my all-time favorite Monkees songs.

There’s an army base located very near Clarksville – Fort Campbell – and I’m guessing Boyce and Hart who wrote “Last Train to Clarksville” for The Monkees somehow knew about it and used it as a jumping of point for the song.

Of course any real life inspiration for a Monkees song is well worth investigating, IMHO. So near the end of May I made my way to Nashville, the Music City, and hopefully to get a glimpse of the fabled Clarksville.

Let me just say that Nashville wasn’t exactly the dream trip I was hoping it would be. The first, and frankly the only, word that comes to mind when I hear the word Nashville from now on is … traffic. And when I say traffic, wow do I mean traffic.

I have never in my life seen so many cars crammed onto such weirdly designed highways. It was a nightmare driving anywhere in the Nashville area that didn’t involve a lot of frayed nerves and a lot of intense cursing. The drive to Tennessee even took an extra two hours just because of the God awful traffic that started to rear its ugly head about an hour and a half outside of Nashville – ugh.

To top it off It was a wet and dreary May weekend and the rain certainly didn’t help matters any as my spouse and I nearly lost ten years of our lives trying to maneuver our way through the dense and never ending highways around Nashville.

We did manage to get to see a show at the Grand Ole Opry which was a treat but other then that the weekend was one rainy bust plus a bicycle race throughout the city that same weekend made getting around a complete disappointment.

In fact the only thing that truly saved the weekend for us was our trip to the lovely and charming town of Clarksville, Tennessee.

After a hectic Friday of driving to Nashville and then barely making it to see the Grand Ole Opry, we were hoping for a Saturday of fun in downtown Nashville. Apparently fate had other things in mind as the pouring rain and the homeless folks everywhere and the overall dreary atmosphere really made the weekend seem like a lost cause.

What actually saved the whole trip was a Google search for antiques shops in Clarksville and the discovery of what looked like a really interesting record store.

After a rainy stop at one local Nashville record store – a nice store actually but I found nothing to buy – off we went to Clarksville and hopefully escape the wretched traffic and the odd tourist buses full of drunk people at 9 a.m. shouting into the rainy sky that filled the streets of downtown Nashville.

I must say the trip to Clarksville was much easier on the nerves as the traffic was much better and the scenery was nice as well. By the time we got there the sun had come out and the sky became blue and we knew that this must have been a good idea as both our moods got a lot cheerier.

The antique stores and the record store were indeed nice and I manged to score a near mint and unplayed copy of The Monkees 1969 single “Tear Drop City” in its picture sleeve and a lovely promo copy of the first Archies album which also looked unplayed (see photos above).

It’s kind of funny that I found the “Tear Drop City” 45 as that song is basically a rewrite of “Last Train to Clarksville” which was also recorded in 1966 but unreleased until 1969.

Ironically I went to three record stores and several antique stores in the Nashville area and the only Monkees album I found was three very used copies of their fourth album “Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, Ltd.” which features some songs that were recorded in Nashville! Weird but true.

After walking around we could both say the definite highlight of our trip to the Nashville area was going to see the sleepy and charming Clarksville and of course finding some fun vinyl along the way didn’t hurt things a bit. There was also some really good food in Clarksville and that’s always a good way to ease the pain of traveling.

(Note: You can see photos below of Clarksville and the Grand Ole Opry show we saw below.)

Maybe we just had bad luck with Nashville but I am actually glad I finally got to see it as it’s such an iconic American city but really I have no desire to return. It was an interesting trip and at least I can scratch the Music City off of my list of things to see.

I’m sure other people have had much better experiences visiting Nashville but for me it will always be one dreary city full of dirty cars and … traffic.

Well that’s all for now.

As usual be safe and well and I hope you’ve had a good summer

There are more summer recaps coming soon.

Ta ta for now