"Well, that's it. I'm no longer a Beatle."

The night of August 29th, I watched all the footage available from the Beatles' last days as a touring group. I also listened to the audio from the concert two times in a row. It was certainly one of their best performances from the '66 tour--very energetic, their voices were in fine form, their musicianship top notch. (Not like the Japan concerts!) The first caps of Ringo (and Paul's hand!) are from footage of The Beatles taking a short bus ride from the airport to Candlestick Park.

John introduced "Day Tripper" as a song about a "naughty lady", and George introduced "I Feel Fine" as an oldie written in 1959! Paul trumps them both with his dedication of "I Wanna Be Your Man" to "all the wonderful backroom boys on this tour." (!) (For more humor, you must watch the L.A. Capitol Records press conference--I'll post caps and quotes from it at a later date.) Jim Marshall's beautiful photos from the concert indicate the lads were certainly having a good time that night.

I loved that they did "Long Tall Sally" as the closer with Paul really wailing, sounding like the proto-punk of their early Star-Club gigs. If only Tony Barrow had thought to turn that tape over...we could have heard LTS in its entirety, and also those first few notes of "In My Life" that John played. I wish they would have performed "In My Life" even if it couldn't have been preserved on tape; at least those in attendance would have gotten something extra special that evening.

The Fabs then took a timed self-portrait of their last moments on stage together and then jetted from the stage into an awaiting armored van. The last captures are from their arrival back home. An era came to an end, and a new one soon began.