The Beatles Get Their Own Show
Trip down memory lane.
In May 1963, the Beatles were in the midst of their most grueling year of touring: They were playing a concert, TV, or radio appearance almost every day, and often they were doing two or three. Though the band gave well over 200 performances, and had been accustomed to playing several hours of material from their days in Hamburg.
These shows only made use of a small portion of their material, usually the same 20 to 25 minutes. They were promoting their debut album, after all, along with its one or two hit singles, so each set, whether on stage or on air, focused night in, night out, on those same songs. “The Beatles’ music died then, as musicians,” John Lennon later said, of this stifling setup. “That’s why we never improved as musicians; we killed ourselves then to make it. And that was the end of it.”
Source: Slate
