The Beatles - Rooftop Concert (Full Version)

The Beatles Rooftop Concert 1969 London (HD) from lordcris on Vimeo.

Last Concert Of The Beatles On The APPLE RECORDS on Abbey Road 12.00pm, Thursday 30 January 1969 (43 years ago)

The Beatles, with Billy Preston, gave their final live performance atop the Apple building at 3 Savile Row, London, in what became the climax of their Let It Be film.

We went on the roof in order to resolve the live concert idea, because it was much simpler than going anywhere else; also nobody had ever done that, so it would be interesting to see what happened when we started playing up there. It was a nice little social study. We set up a camera in the Apple reception area, behind a window so nobody could see it, and we filmed people coming in. The police and everybody came in saying, 'You can't do that! You've got to stop.'

George Harrison
Anthology

30 January 1969 in London was a cold day, and a bitter wind was blowing on the rooftop by midday. To cope with the weather, John Lennon borrowed Yoko Ono's fur coat, and Ringo Starr wore his wife Maureen Starkey's red mac.

There was a plan to play live somewhere. We were wondering where we could go - 'Oh, the Palladium or the Sahara.' But we would have had to take all the stuff, so we decided, 'Let's get up on the roof.' We had Mal and Neil set the equipment up on the roof, and we did those tracks. I remember it was cold and windy and damp, but all the people looking out from offices were really enjoying it.

Ringo Starr
Anthology

The 42-minute show was recorded onto two eight-track machines in the basement of Apple, by George Martin, engineer Glyn Johns and tape operator Alan Parsons. The tracks were filled with the following: Paul McCartney, vocals; John Lennon's and George Harrison's vocals; Billy Preston's organ; McCartney's bass guitar; a sync track for the film crew; Starr's drums; Lennon's guitar; Harrison's guitar.

That was one of the greatest and most exciting days of my life. To see The Beatles playing together and getting an instant feedback from the people around them, five cameras on the roof, cameras across the road, in the road, it was just unbelievable.

Alan Parsons
The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, Mark Lewisohn

The songs performed on the roof:

• Get Back (five versions)
• I Want You (She's So Heavy)
• Don't Let Me Down (two versions)
• I've Got A Feeling
• One After 909
• Danny Boy
• Dig A Pony (two versions)
• God Save The Queen
• A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody

Brief, incomplete and off-the-cuff versions of I Want You (She's So Heavy), God Save The Queen and A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody were fooled around with in between takes - as was Danny Boy, which was included in the film and on the album. None of these were serious group efforts, and one - the group and Preston performing God Save The Queen - was incomplete as it coincided with Alan Parsons changing tapes.

The Beatles' rooftop show began at around midday. The timing coincided with the lunch hour of many nearby workplaces, which led to crowds quickly forming. Although few people could see them, crowds gathered in the streets below to hear The Beatles play.

There were people hanging off balconies and out of every office window all around. The police were knocking on the door - George Martin went white! We really wanted to stop the traffic, we wanted to blast out the entire West End...

Dave Harries, engineer
The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, Mark Lewisohn

Traffic in Savile Row and neighbouring streets came to a halt, until police from the nearby West End Central police station, further up Savile Row, entered Apple and ordered the group to stop playing.

It was good fun, actually. We had to set the mikes up and get a show together. I remember seeing Vicki Wickham of Ready, Steady, Go! (there's a name to conjure with) on the opposite roof, for some reason, with the street between us. She and a couple of friends sat there, and then the secretaries from the lawyers' offices next door came out on their roof. We decided to go through all the stuff we'd been rehearsing and record it. If we got a good take on it then that would be the recording; if not, we'd use one of the earlier takes that we'd done downstairs in the basement. It was really good fun because it was outdoors, which was unusual for us. We hadn't played outdoors for a long time.
It was a very strange location because there was no audience except for Vicki Wickham and a few others. So we were playing virtually to nothing - to the sky, which was quite nice. They filmed downstairs in the street - and there were a lot of city gents looking up: 'What's that noise?'

Paul McCartney
Anthology