Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I'm new to this forum...so I don't know what the policy is in regard to bootlegs. My attitude is after 4 decades, life is too short to wait.
Such is the case for the Live Concert DVD's I've recently purchased of The BEATLES in '64 Washington, '65 Shea Stadium and '66 Budokan. We've all seen clips of these shows, but these are the full length un-cut concert performances.
Has anybody seen these and would like to respond? I have some opinions I could offer...or have you guys already talked this one to death.
I'll leave a link if permitted.

Tom....
Welcome to this forum!

and yes, LINK ME PLEASE!!

;^)

I would LOVE to see these!

The full Shea Stadium and Washington DC shows have never been circulated, as far as I know.

Even the TV film of Shea Stadium is incomplete (no "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby") and the vocals were re-recorded in a studio.

Every print of the Washington show I've ever seen is missing the final song, "Long Tall Sally," and most prints omit "Please Please Me" (or it's cut in half).

Two Budokan shows exist, both videotaped by NHK. In one, the Beatles are wearing black suits, and in the other they're wearing striped suits. The black suits concert was used for an NHK TV special in '66, and has been officially released through Apple in Japan only. The picture and sound quality is superb, but the performance STINKS! It does have an interesting live arrangement of "Yesterday," with two electric guitars, electric bass and drums.

I heard they'd done two shows in one day at Budokan, an afternoon and an evening, and that one of the shows was not so good, and the other just fine. I've seen the striped suite show in a theatre.

Here's a song list from each show:
Washington DC '64 -
Roll over Beethoven, From Me to You, I Saw Her Standing There, I Wanna be Your Man, Please Please Me, Till There Was You, She Loves You, I Wanna Hold Your Hand.

Shea Stadium - '65
Twist & Shout, I Feel Fine, Dizzie Miss Lizzie, Ticket to Ride, Act Naturally, Can't Buy Me Love, Baby's in Black, A Hard Day's Night, Help, I'm Down.
This one is disappointing in terms of visual quality, and Hard Day's Night has audio spliced interviews during the song - after the concert, it also contains some songs from a Dick Clark Show.

Budokan - '66
Rock & Roll Music, She's a Woman, If I Needed Someone, Day Tripper, Baby's in Black, I Feel Fine, Yesterday, I Wanna be Your Man, Nowhere Man, Paperback Rider, I'm Down.
This one is in color, and if you adjust the set, The quality is pretty good. They are wearing dark green suits (could be mistaken for black) with red shirts. There isn't much crowd noise, so you can hear some pretty shabby vocals. Before they break into the high vocal for Paperback Writer, George waves at the crowd to insite them to yell and cover-up some weak harmonies. They also have some local Japenese media footage and interviews.
Glenn is right - the performance stinks, but there are plenty of high points - and it's still worth owning. The Beatles were tired of touring at this point - and it shows. However,after the first viewing, I became less critical and enjoyed the show.
The technical aspect of concerts was stone-age stuff....it's a real time piece.

They used to show these linked together in movie theaters in the late '70's, early '80's

I have these, and also 'Big Night Out' from 23Feb 1964.
One thing I've never seen (and would love to) is the US cartoon series. Was it any good?

I remember watching the cartoons. The voices weren't bad and they had at least one song in each cartoon. The cartoons were usually about the "boys" helping someone solve a problem. One funny thing that happened when the show started or ended was that they unplugged their guitars and walked away, but Ringo unplugged his drums and they deflated like they were filled with air. They played "And Your Bird Can Sing" when the show was going off.

I never missed the cartoon show when I was a kid, I loved it. I did a quick search and found a link where it looks like you can purchase the cartoons on video. Very cool;
http://www.themoontemple.com/web/beatles.let.special.edition.disc.dvd.item8.41544.php

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