August 29 2010 marked the 44^th anniversary of the last Beatles concert. EVER!

August 29 1966 saw the most famous pop / rock n roll band in history perform to 25,000 screaming fans at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. This was just over half capacity at 42,500 and whole sections of the park were unsold. Only a few years earlier and it would have been standing room only and unthinkable. WHY was this?

Here is a quote from George Harrison at the end of the last Beatles concert at Candlestick park which may give a clue.
“We’d done about 1,400 live shows and I certainly felt that was it…it was ridiculous , and it felt dangerous because everybody was out of hand and out of line. Even the cops were out of line…we’ve got to stop this…we’ve got to pack this in”.

Hindsight is a great thing

“Twenty-four thousand screaming fans couldn’t be wrong. But what they didn’t realize on that late August evening was that the Beatles didn’t want to be there, that the band couldn’t hear itself enough to sing on-key, and that this would be the last Beatles concert ever.”

The last Beatles concert only lasted for 33 minutes. There were technical problems and the Fab 4 could not even hear their own voices and consequently sang off key the whole time.

At this point only the iconic foursome and a few insiders knew this would be the last Beatles concert (maybe THEY didn’t even know the tag “EVER”)?

Candlestick Park circa 1966 (Wikepedia)

Did You Know

• With the lack of sales the promoters made a loss. The Beatles received 65% of the gross takings of the concert while a further 15% went to the City of San Francisco – Leaving only 20% for Tempo Productions who promoted the last Beatles concert.
• The ticket machines could not process the oversized tickets so they needed to be processed by hand.
• Paul McCartney asked Tony Barrow (Press officer) to record the performance and bootleg copies were made. One problem was the tape ran out, and the last song of the last Beatles Concert was not recorded in its entirety.
• John strummed the intro guitar notes of “In My Life” just prior to leaving the stage.
• The famous stadium which housed the last Beatles concert in 1966 was later renamed 3Com Park then Monster Park. However in 2008 it was formally renamed once again to Candlestick Park.

Their last performance however was years later on January 30 1969. It was the now famous concert on the rooftop of the abbey Road Studios where they performed songs from their albums Abbey Road and Let it Be Albums and is immortalized in their film “Let It Be”

“They just came to the place, screamed like crazy and had a good time. You have to remember we were only on for 30 minutes” Ringo Starr on Shea Stadium concert 1965

Check out Last Beatles Concert at Candlestick Park Videos.