Although they would release a plethora of industry-changing albums through 1970, it was August 29, 1966 inside a foggy and fairly desolate Candlestick Park where The Beatles would perform their last live concert.
The San Francisco show sold only 25,000 seats for the 42,500-capacity stadium. The biggest kicker? Tickets cost anywhere from $4.50 to $6.50.
The largest and arguably most influential band in the history of rock and roll obviously still had a full tank of creativity and inspiration as a band. However, the wear and tear of touring while being the most famous band in the world had already taken its toll. Their extreme fame proved to be their ultimate demise.
Rolling Stone has a great article summarizing the Beatles’ final tour and why it was just that. It’s a must read.
McCartney just wanted to get it over with. “It wasn’t fun anymore. And that was the main point: We’d always tried to keep some fun in it for ourselves. In anything you do you have to do that, and we’d been pretty good at it. But even now America was beginning to pall because of the conditions of tour, and because we’d done it so many times. So by Candlestick Park it was like, ‘Don’t tell anyone, but this is probably our last gig.'”
The Beatles Rock And Roll Music (Live At Candlestick Park)
You can listen to nearly the entire show below. The Beatles only played 11 songs that night in San Francisco. The recorder ran out of tape halfway through the final song, Long Tall Sally.
The 50th anniversary of The Beatle’s next-to-last show at Dodger Stadium was this past weekend. The Fab Four, undoubtedly the best Beatles cover band in existence, performed a show at the Stadium in honor of the anniversary. Since Candlestick was torn down just last year, the show was the next best way to honor the 50 years since the band’s final live performance.
If you haven’t yet seen them, check out The Fab Four. I promise this isn’t a paid plug. I’ve seen them twice and they’re phenomenal.
As a huge Beatles fan and a baseball fan, I had to bring up today’s anniversary. In 2016, it’s the closest thing you’ll get to experiencing a real Beatles show.
Josh Helmuth is the editor of Crave Sports.
