Beatles - Live at the Hollywood Bowl

[Mike]

A composite of two concerts recorded a year apart in Los Angeles' Hollywood Bowl. It nearly didn't get out at all. Producer George Martin had reservations from the start about recording the band live, and those doubts were realized by the results, an outshouted rock quartet without stage monitors trying to play over the sheer noise of over 17,000 pairs of healthy young lungs.

By 1977, Martin had been lured into making something out of these tapes, but there was only so much a brilliant producer could do with three-track tapes recorded under those hostile conditions that were, well, unprecedented. The band sounds muffled, raw and choppy in spots, trying to crank out the songs by rote as best they can over the constant screaming. The album opens with five songs from the 1965 concert, then picks up the 1964 concert for three numbers, bounces back to 1965 for two more, and concludes with three from 1964. Generally, the 1965 performances are better the 1964 ones, and a bit more together and less prone to lapses of concentration. Possibly the experience of playing in such chaotic conditions in 1964 proved useful in 1965; indeed, somehow, John, Paul, and George even manage to follow Ringo's tricky rhythm on "Ticket to Ride" amidst all of the madness. In fact, Ringo was the unsung hero of these wild events, always laying down a solid beat come hell or what may. In his stage announcements, John seems to be talking only to himself, while Paul the showman does make an attempt to connect with the crowd. Released 7 years after the bands official break-up, The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl managed to rocket up to number two on the album charts. However, the album has yet to be issued on CD, I have a digital copy I downloaded using Napster in 1999 obviously created from the vinyl album. I still have my copy on vinyl, I remember buying the album when it came out 1977. The album is a superior engineering feat. Long before the release of the Anthology series, a taste of what a Beatles concert was like was available to fans.

The vinyl is still available online from $80 used to $125 new.

But worth every penny!! You gotta hear this on vinyl!!

[edna]

I specially love "Things We Said Today" in that album...

[RonJonSurfer]

I own it, but won't sell it.

[edna]

Oh, I won' t sell mine either... I have some very rare Beatles albums from the sixties and could have sold them for more than 100€ but I won' t...

[RonJonSurfer]

My sister has all the original albums. She was 11 or 12 when the Beatles hit the US. Unfortunately she wrote "I Love Paul" all over most of the covers and threw out the picture sleeves from the 45's.

I didn't even remove the cellophane wrapper from most of my albums. You can still see the original price sticker.

I never even opened the Skynyrd "Street Survivors" album. I found it in at Peaches Records in Ft. Lauderdale, FL after the plane crash. I knew it was worth money already and was shocked to see a copy that still had the flames in the background behind the band. The record company had re-released it with black in the background.

I never had the heart or desire to open it.

That's much like the copy of Playboy I bought on the night that john Lennon was killed. For once, i actually bought Playboy for an article...the interview with Lennon. I got home, turned on Monday Night Football and figured I would save reading the article until the next day. When i heard John got murdered, I never had the heart to go back and read the interview.

[MarcM]

I HAD LIVE AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL. I ENJOYED IT AS A KID. I WISH I KNEW WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL OF MY RECORDS. YEARS LATER WHILE BACKSTAGE AT THE BOWL, I REMEMBERED THINKING "THIS IS WHERE THEY WERE" AS I LOOKED AROUND. THEN I SAW THE PHOTO OF THEM ON THE WALL WHILE PLAYING AT THE BOWL. THEY HAVE PHOTOS ALL OVER THE BACKSTAGE AREA OF PEOPLE THAT HAVE PLAYED THERE. IT IS KIND OF COOL...LIKE A HISTORY LESON OR A CAVE PAINTING.

[edna]

That's much like the copy of Playboy I bought on the night that john Lennon was killed. For once, i actually bought Playboy for an article...the interview with Lennon. I got home, turned on Monday Night Football and figured I would save reading the article until the next day. When i heard John got murdered, I never had the heart to go back and read the interview.

wow... I bought that Playboy too (the only Playboy I ever bought...) but it was three weeks later, when I came back to civilization. I was shooting a movie in the desert -Almeria, Spain- when he was killed and we didn' t even have a telephone there to talk about it...