Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Okay we all know that the "Rubber soul" - "Revolver" tour of 1966 was the last Beatles tour. Paul brought his Hofner as his main bass along but his sual backup, the 1961 Hofner (the one with the closer pickup spacing) was left at home and Macca instead brought his rickenbacker 4001 as his back up on tour, probably because of the good sounding results he had in the studio.

But I never found any pictures of him playing it, making me wonder if Macca ever used it live with the Beatles at all.

So does anybody know the answer? Did Macca play one of the shows on the 1966 tour with his rick?

http://www.thecanteen.com/2bass3.jpg
Paul with both his basses during the 1966 tour.

good question... I've never seen a live Beatles pix of him with the Ric.

Here's something to ponder...

In the Beatles Gear book, page 84, there is a photo of Mal Evans moving guitars. The caption says it is at a concert in 1966 and the guitar on the right sure looks like the Ric bass. If the caption is accurate, maybe Paul took the Ric as a back up?

Who knows? It's fun to wonder about it.

I've never seen a picture of him using the Rickenbacker on tour either. But, it was there as a back-up and I find it hard to believe he wouldn't pick it up at least once to use. I don't think we've seen every picture yet. Also, there were a lot of photos taken of those tours but every minute is not documented with photos. There could be a time where he choose it for ten minutes over the Hofner. I mean, I would

Hey, Larry, good to see your name again. I talked to you on the phone last year about this time inviting you down here for that confluence we had in April. Sorry you couldn't make it.

Good to hear from you too Paul. Wish I could have made it to the confluence. Sometimes I wish I wasn't so far north as it takes forever to get anywhere! Are you thinking of doing it again?

Not this spring, anyway. We'll see what the year brings. Maybe in the fall?

It was his back up bass in 1966. I can't imagine that any of them would need back up instruments unless they were struck by lightning. 20 minute sets that no one could hear anyway. I always thought it would be a cool if Paul played his 4001S, Lennon his 1996 and George his 360/12. That would have been a very cool fireglo show.

Not in color but a little fireglo show in the Budokan 1966.

Neat picture, Atsushi. I don't remember seeing that one before.

Yeah, that's great. Where is it from?

(So, I just gotta print up this photo, take it to a music shop, say, down in NYC, and say "I'll have one of each, please").

Gotta get a loan.

He may have never played it, but it was with them in the US in '66 as well. You can see it was on stage at the '66 Shea show.

This photo from Backstage of Budokan Japan, 1966.
Took by Robert Whitaker.

It's interesting that John and Paul both took two instruments with them on the tour, but George took three!

Makes sense. Each has a backup to their regular 6 strings, and George has a 12 for 1 song. I would have LOVED to see live footage of George with that GORGEOUS SG!