The Beatles - Let It Be

It was my eldest daughter’s 19th birthday yesterday so I took her and the crew along to see Let It Be in the West End. My kids have grown up with The Beatles’ music and love it as much as I do so I knew it was a winner. Whilst the West End Beatles are not as good as The Bootleg Beatles, it was a terrific night of nostalgia and great songs. The highlight for me was While My Guitar Gently Weeps. The guy who played George delivered a note perfect version of Clapton’s guitar work in the song and it brought the house down. When people ask you what you do for a living it must be so cool to say, I am John Lennon! If you are looking for a show and like The Beatles I would recommend this for a great night out.

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I listened to Rubber Soul pretty much continuously through my dissertation after finding a tape with it on. I’ve listened to most of their other stuff, but nowhere near as much as that album.

That said, my relationship with the Beatles is “it’s complicated”. I’ve huge respect for the band and what they achieved, so much so that I can’t even suss out quite exactly what that is. Would rock and roll have been the same without them? Did they lay the groundwork for metal when they laid down Helter Skelter. Ok, ok - I know these guys could play their own instruments and write, but looking back at the footage, the crowd feedback is similar to what you see at One Direction concerts. Mostly young girls, screaming hysterically.

Somehow that band that appealed primarily to teenage girls conquered the world and helped to change the music forever.

I know all that, but if you live in Liverpool., you can get a bit fucking sick of hearing it. Most scousers I’ve met agree.

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Its hard to realise know just how much The Beatles contributed to the changing face of Britain in the 60s. I know it is a cliche but it is almost as if it were all black and white before and turned to colour around the time of Sgt Peppers. Fair play to them. They were sick of the screaming girls and gave up playing live after the Shea Stadium gig because they couldnt hear themselves play and felt that was affecting their muscianship. From then on they just worked in the studio apart from the iconic roof top gig in London (that has since been copied by the likes of U2). The band didnt just appeal to teenage girls unlike bands like the Bay City Rollers. Even bands like The Stones deferred to The Beatles (although Lennon said he would rather be in the Rolling Stones). There were many really good bands around in the 60s apart from the Stones. The Who, The Kinks, The Small Faces, Them (with Van Morrison), The Yardbirds (where the likes of Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page made their names) etc and to stay at the top for the best part of a decade was no mean feat. Beatlemania dried up when they stopped playing live and they went on to write some of their best material after that, always pushing the boundaries and always coming up with the goods. Perhaps Scoucers are sick of them, probably why they moved to London!

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I’m largely referring to their legacy than the time that they were writing and recording. Liverpool has been described at times as a Beatles Theme Park. I think a lot of the locals get a bit embarrassed by the fuss, especially when one of the Fab Four’s old haunts go up for sale. “Ringo first did weed in this shed!”. It’s not quite that bad, but you get the idea.

I completely accept that the Beatles are unique, and probably the reason that the English city that foreigners will name first after London is Liverpool. They’ve been amazing ambassadors and promoters for the city, whether they intended that or not. The problem is that they’ve also made it a little one-dimensional. The locals are completely aware that the city is about a shitload more things than the Beatles and the football, which is probably why there is a bit of resentment to accompany the respect…

Southampton Gaumont and Hammersmith…live performances about 1964 ish.

Screaming mass of girls and a few of my mates coz we fancied the girlz in our class at Hamble school. :kiss: who purchased said tickets.

Never heard a thing…except girlz in a tiz.

Whatever happened to those ladies and the Beatles of course. :laughing:

Let it Be…yeah yeah yeah :laughing:

I can blame Hamble for a lot of things…but Ganges at Ipswich made me what I am today :cool:

I had a simliar experience with T Rex (Tyranosaurus Rex as were). I liked them as a hippy band and liked Ride A White Swan so bought some tickets to see them at the Ashcroft Theatre but by the time the concert came round they had become tennybopper idols and the place was full of screaming pre pubescent girls. Gary Glitter would have loved it!

The cold hard truth is the Beatles only really started pushing the boundaries of music once they’d moved to London.

When the Beatles first started to become famous there were lots of bands/artists following in their footsteeps - The Merseybeats, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Cilla Black etc. There was a certain sound that most of the bands copied and that became known as the Mersey Beat. For a while Liverpool were to centre of the cultural change but The Beatles migrated to Swinging London and the 60s revolution happened in Carnaby Street, Soho and all around there. By the late 60s you could see the likes of Jimmy Hendrix of the fledgling Led Zepplin play in the small clubs dotted in a cluster in central London. The Beatles obviosuly went off to world wide acclaim whereas a lot of their peers gradually vansihed or became TV show hosts, but there is a lot more to Liverpool’s musical heritage than the Fab Four, bless em

Oh, and better to be known for a musical revolution and some great football moments than as a bunch of theaving scallies! :wink:

They were certainly exposed to more diverse influences and the boundaries grew by leaps and bounds.

Originally posted by @Furball

The cold hard truth is the Beatles only really started pushing the boundaries of music once they’d moved to London.

Which is fair comment, but not especially revelatory. Most people tend to improve when their horizons are broadened. London is also home to some very smart people, which helps anyone maximise their talent.

What is that expression? Birds of a feather flock together? Through the years writers (the Bloomsbury group) musos, painters, poets have often got together to exchange ideas and thoughts. Sometimes they lived together, sometimes they met at the same bars, coffee houses or clubs. There are some great stories from the 60s about how the influences spread like wildfire. The day after Sgt Peppers was released Paul McCartney tells how he went to a club to see Jimi Hendrix and Hendrix opened his set with the title track from Sgt Pepper. Band members would swap information about recoding techniques and how they got certain guitar, drum or keyboard sounds. It must have been a wonderful time to be a musician. People like Jimmy Page and Rick Wakeman were session musicians. Page played on many of the hits at that time including the lead guitar on The Who’s Cant Explain. Wakeman played keys for Bowie on a number of his early hits. The Nice (Keith Emerson’s first band) were PP Arnold’s backing band live. They all got to hone their craft and went on to bigger and better things through that experience.

Hendrix also included a cover of Sgt Pepper in his set at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, 3 weeks before his sad demise. I’m pretty sure the Beetles were in the audience that day as well.

Died too young, in fact many rock stars have passed away at 27.

I wish Cilla Black had died at 27. That’s wrong of me to say that :frowning:

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“Surprise Surprise” the unexpected hits you between the eyes … If only a well placed sniper bullet

Harsh, but not unfair.

Hard to imagine Our Cilla as a pop star but she used to be up there with Dusty Springfield, Petula Clark, Sandy Shaw et al. Was even managed by Brian Epstein. Oh, Mrs SOG has just told me she really has died!!

Errrr…are you psychic, or were you responsible?

http://news.sky.com/story/1529203/a-rare-talent-tributes-paid-to-cilla-black

I’m not a psychic murder person, just watched the news. Though, if hired I’d like to think I could do a job, for the right money