Saturday, May 30, 2015

The Beatles Live at the Grugahalle, Essen, Germany

The Beatles performed two shows at the Grugahalle in Essen Germany as the 1966 European tour rolled on. The shows took place on June 25 1966 the day after the performances in Munich.
The entire afternoon show has been taped and is available on the bootleg "Mythology, Volume 2" although I have not heard it but I hear it's not of best quality.
I did find, however, about a minute and a half of the Essen show with an edited version of "If I Needed Someone" with George on lead vocal that someone has (what it looks like) synced with some audio on youtube. I've included the link below.
The songs for the afternoon show that are bootlegged are as follows: "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" and "I'm Down".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXcd0H8qpEg


Saturday, May 23, 2015

The Beatles Live at the Circus-Krone-Bau, Munich Germany

The Beatles' evening concert show at the Circur-Krone-Bau on June 24 1966 was recorded on video and was re-played a few weeks later on July  05 1966 on ZDF television. The television special was entitled "Die Beatles". It also featured songs from some of the opening acts as well as silent footage.
The set list for this show was featured in edited form with a little over half of it shown on television and bits of pieces of other songs. The tunes featured in the film include: "Rock And Roll Music", "She's A Woman/Baby's In Black", "I Feel Fine", "Yesterday", "Nowhere Man" and an edited version of "I'm Down" (different from the previously mentioned version from the last post).
"Nowhere Man" was eventually commercially released as a video on the Apple documentary "Anthology" series showing the opening of the song. The Beatles would be a little rusty at the live shows of 1966 and no music from the "Revolver" LP (which was to be released in August) was played at the shows with the exception of the single "Paperback Writer".
The audio from the show can be found on CD bootlegs "Atlanta, Munich, Seattle" and "Beatles' 66: Munich/San Francisco".
Here's a clip of the Beatles' musical portion on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBnnxPZ-Ypk


Saturday, May 16, 2015

"I'm Down" at the Afternoon Circus

Once the new LP (eventually entitled "Revolver") was completed as far as recording goes, the Beatles set off on a world tour for the year 1966. This, of course, would be the last major world tour of their career. Interesting that the first stop on the tour was Germany where it all began.
On June 24 1966, the Beatles played two shows (afternoon and evening) at the Circus-Krone-Bau Hall in Munich, Germany. In this post we will be discussing the afternoon show.
There is only one complete tune from this show that has surfaced as well as some partial music since most of the material from the afternoon show was taken from a newsreel.  Less than a minute of "I Wanna Be Your Man" sung by Ringo and the complete version of "I'm Down" (the evening show only airs a portion of the latter tune).
According to John Winn's amazing book "That Magic Feeling": Both songs appeared on the bootleg CD "Beatles '66": Muich/San Francisco"; the newsreel footage is traded on video.
There you go, I"ve taken a look on youtube and I can't seem to find anything although there are lots of clips of  "I'm Down" from the evening show and not the afternoon show. This is because the evening show was videotaped while the afternoon show was not.

Saturday, May 9, 2015

"He Said, He Said" Composing Tape

There exists a cassette recording which features John Lennon composing a new song along with a recording of a phone conversation with who and where, I 'm not sure. The interesting part is that the song being composed would end up on the Beatles' LP "Revolver" to close out side one, namely "She Said, She Said".
The composing tape doesn't have a precise date but it is between September 1965 and June 1966. The song would be recorded on June 21 1966 at EMI Studio 2 with all four playing on the backing track but only John and George contributing to the vocal (Paul had walked out on the session at some point due to a supposed argument).
But I digress, the composition tape consists of two sessions. The first session has John with acoustic guitar repeating "He Said, I know what it's like to be dead" over and over. This was due to the Beatles relaxing in Los Angeles during their 1965 tour when actor Peter Fonda approached John (who was on acid at the time) and repeating that he knew what it was like to be dead !!
The second session on the tape is a little clearer and the verses are complete lyrically. The only other change in the song is the middle waltz "When I was a boy" part which was completed with the help of George Harrison.
I've included a portion of the tape for your listening pleasure:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMRdcUHq92Q


Saturday, May 2, 2015

"Here, There and Everywhere" Early take w/harmonies.

There is a version of "Here, There And Everywhere" that is contained on the commercially released Apple 3-LP/2-CD "Anthology 2" that is an example of a sort of "out fake" that would permeate a lot of this set. I know it's not nice to criticize these things as it is very entertaining and also it's cool to hear some of the early guide vocal stuff, this uses an early vocal attempt (and not the one that was to be used as it was strictly a guide) combined with the later additional harmonies "flown in" from a different take. It all sounds great in the end but it loses a bit of it's authenticity.
The backing tracks for this Macca tune were started on June 14 1966 at EMI Studio 2. There were four takes completed and some vocals were also attempted. This was not to be used in the end and The Beatles decided to start over a couple of days later and they re-entered the same studio on June 16 1966 for another attempt at the song starting fresh.
This time, thirteen takes of the backing instrumental (drums, bass, guitars) was completed and as this was taking place Paul would sing a guide vocal as the guys played in order to placemark the arrangement for the song. The guide vocal on the Anthology set comes from take seven. The backing vocals - three part harmonies were then taken from take thirteen and added to take seven to accomplish the final version as heard on the commercial release. The backing vocals enter during the last verse, also notice that cadence on the main vocal is different than the commercial version would provide.
The next day (June 17 1966) and at the same location, Paul would add his final vocal as heard on the "Revolver" LP/CD and even harmonize with himself during the double tracking of his vocal. Here's a link to the "Anthology" version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vNtjSQ-lVE