Beatles FAQ

The last time The Beatles played together for an audience was in the famous rooftop performance in January 1969. This was not, however, a concert in the conventional sense, with tickets available to the public.  August 29th, 1966 — Candlestick Park in San Francisco The Beatles’ last ever US date proved a downbeat occasion. It was held in the Giants stadium, a particularly unsuitable venue. A huge fence separated the crowd from the band and there were chaotic dressing room arrangements. Despite the continuing popularity of the band, only 25,000 of the 42,000 seats were sold — partly because of high prices. The disconnect between young fans and now forbiddingly remote idols is made apparent by concert’s compere ‘Emperor’ Gene Nelson: Candlestick Park in August, at night, was cold, foggy and windy. …The Beatles were taking their time to get out. I was trying to entertain a crowd that was shouting, ‘Beatles, Beatles, Beatles.’ The dressing room was chaos. There were loads of people the...

The Beatles leave Candlestick Park On August 29, 1966 The Beatles played their last (official) live concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.  The Candlestick Park concert was on the surface the triumphant finale of another record-breaking tour. But as Paul McCartney has recently said, it also proved a crisis point: By then we were totally fed up and then they put us in the back of a stainless steel box { the armoured car they used to leave the Candlestick Park gig }...  Now this is like some weird sci-fi thing form 2001 or something. We’re suddenly sliding around in the back of the van...The guys, John [Lennon] and George [Harrison], had been a little {fed up} about touring and, finally, all of us, were like ‘Fuck this!’ So that was the moment. There was no public announcement and no definitive decision to stop all live performance at some point. But The Beatles would never play a scheduled concert again. Back to Abbey Road Liberated from their grueling tour...