Fab Four Blog

With the tour ending, no news to report for the Beatles. 

With the European tour ending, these words were spoken in Anthology by Paul McCartney recalling the tour,

"I remember playing a big bullring in Barcelona, the Plaza de Toros, where the Lord Mayor had great seats and all the rich people had seats but the kids, our real audience, were outside. We used to get upset about that: 'Why are we playing to all these bloody officials? We should be playing to the people outside. Let them in...' But of course they wouldn't." 

Source: www.beatlesbible.com

Plaza de Toros Monumental, Avenue de led Corts - Catalanes, Barcelona, Spain

Another bullring concert, at 10:45 pm, and the last date on the European tour. The Beatles' two-hour Iberia flight from Barcelona to London Airport on July 4th touched down at 12:00 noon. 

Source: The Complete Beatles Chronicle by Mark Lewisohn

Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas, Madrid Spain

One show in the bullring, at 8:30 pm. The Beatles flew on to Barcelona at 2:45 the following afternoon. 

Source: The Complete Beatles Chronicle by Mark Lewisohn

No news to report for the Beatles today. 

Palais des Expositions, Esplanade Marechal de Lattre de Tassigny, Nice, France 

One show, at 9:00 pm. The group flew to Madrid at 3:45 pm on July 1. 

Source: The Complete Beatles Chronicle by Mark Lewisohn

Palais des Expositions, Esplanade Marechal de Lattre de Tassigny, Nice, France 

One show, at 9:00 pm. The group flew to Madrid at 3:45 pm on July 1. 

Source: The Complete Beatles Chronicle by Mark Lewisohn

Nothing major to report for the Beatles today. 

John Lennon evades a young fan who wants his yachting-style cap as a souvenir during the Beatles' concert in Rome on June 28,1965.

The Beatles performed two shows on this day at the Teatro Adriano in Piazza Cavour in Rome, and two more on the following day.  It was the group's only visit to the Italian capital.

The concerts took place on each of the days at 4.30pm and 9.30pm. Originally just this day's performances had been booked, but the next day's were added later on. Despite this, none of The Beatles' four Rome shows was more than half full.

Parts of both this day's performances, recorded by members of the audience, have been circulated on bootlegs, although the quality is less than perfect.

After the second show Paul McCartney met playwright Noël Coward, who had attended the concert. The encounter took place at the Parco dei Principi hotel.

Following their two concerts in Milan, The Beatles were driven in four cars to Genoa, Italy by the Alfa Romeo Racing Team.

The group performed two shows at the city's Palazzo dello Sport, a 25,000-seat arena, at 4.30pm and 9.30pm. As in Milan, tickets for the afternoon appearance sold poorly, with just 5,000 fans seeing The Beatles play; the evening show was seen by 10,000.

The group performed 12 songs during both shows in Genoa: Twist And Shout, She's A Woman, I'm A Loser, Can't Buy Me Love, Baby's In Black, I Wanna Be Your Man, A Hard Day's Night, Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby, Rock And Roll Music, I Feel Fine, Ticket To Ride and Long Tall Sally. 

The Beatles remained in Genoa for just a short time. Immediately after the second show they flew to Rome in a chartered aeroplane.

The Beatles, with Brian and Wendy Hanson, stay at a hotel in Geneva. 4.30pm, 9.30pm. Concerts at the Palazzo dello Sport, Geneva, Italy.

Mr. Quintieri, member of the Italian Parliament, in the Chamber of Deputies, asks the Minister of Finance if `appropriate measure has been taken to guarantee the payment of taxes on the fees paid to the Beatles and what was the amount declared and assessed.'

June 24, 1965 - Velodromo Vigorelli, Milan

Taped: Thursday 24 June 1965
Aired: Thursday 25 May 2000

During their career The Beatles performed eight concerts in Italy, over four days during their European Tour in the summer of 1965. The Beatles played their first Italian show in Milan at the Velodromo Vigorelli.

The group performed two shows on this date, at 4.30pm and 9.30pm. The velodrome seated 22,000 people, although neither of the concerts was a sell-out: the afternoon performance was seen by 7,000, and the evening concert attracted 20,000.

Brian Epstein was not pleased at all the empty seats, particularly during the afternoon show when many of the fans were at school or work and only 7,000 people attended. The press suggested that a combination of high prices and a heat wave had kept the fans away.

The Beatles strolling in a Paris park on June 23 1965 in Paris France

Broadcast of `Londra Ultima Ora', Italian radio programme, with interview to the Beatles (recorded 18 June 1965).

The Beatles arrived for their concert at the Palais D'Hiver on June 22, 1965 in Lyon, France.

Following their two performances the previous day at the Palais des Sports in Paris, The Beatles had a rest day before travelling to Lyon for their next engagement.

It wasn't all rest, however - from inside their hotel, the George V, the group gave an interview to Chris Denning for Radio Luxembourg's weekly show 'The Beatles'. Denning invited them to dedicate songs: John Lennon's was for Harold Wilson; Paul McCartney's were for writers Bernard Levin, Donald Zec and Wolf Mankowitz; George Harrison dedicated a song to the miners of Scunthorpe, in reaction to Ringo Starr's dedication for the Liverpool dockers. Starr also dedicated tunes to writers Don Short and Judith Simons, and for their fan club secretary Freda Kelly.

In the evening The Beatles returned once again to the Castel nightclub on 15 Rue Princesse, where they had partied the night before.

The Beatles' set throughout the European tour comprised 12 songs: Twist and Shout, She's a Woman, I'm a Loser, Can't Buy Me Love, Baby's in Black, I Wanna Be Your Man, A Hard Day's Night, Everybody's Trying to be My Baby, Rock and Roll Music, I Feel Fine, Ticket To Ride and Long Tall Sally.

The Beatles' final European tour opened with a concert at the Palais des Sports in Paris.

While leaving London Airport the group learned that fans had been turned away by airport authorities, who had claimed that The Beatles has asked them to stay away. This was later denied by the group and Brian Epstein.

The Beatles and their entourage arrived at the Paris-Orly airport at 9.55am and were taken to the George V hotel. Around 50 fans were waiting at the hotel, far fewer than on their previous visit.

They played two concerts at the Palais des Sports, at 3pm and 9pm, each of which was seen by 6,000 people. Also on the bill were The Yardbirds. Both were recorded by French radio station Europe 1; the first was broadcast from 1pm on 27 June, and the second was transmitted live.

The evening performance was also filmed by television channel 2, and was shown on 31 October from 7.30pm.

At night they were visited at their hotel by popular French singer Françoise Hardy, before The Beatles went to the Castel nightclub on 15 Rue Princesse, where they partied until the early hours.

No news today

A combination of mono and stereo mixes were made today of songs like "I've Just Seen A Face', 'I'm Down', 'It's Only Love', 'Act Naturally', 'Wait', 'Help!', and 'Yesterday'.

A separate afternoon was solely dedicated to the song 'Help!'. The end result was that its mono and stereo mixes appear to have been produced from a different take. But this is not so - both the mono (used for the single and the monaral album) and the stereo (heard on the stereo album) do come from the same take.

Set to appear in Italy for the first time a few days hence, the Beatles consented to record a 15-minute interview with the BBC's Italian language service, part of the Corporation's European Service. After the Italian Service interview, John travelled across London to the BBC's Lime grove studios for rehearsals and a live appearance on the last-ever edition of the television programme Tonight. In an interview with Kenneth Allsop he promoted the publication of A Spaniard In The Works, and also read extracts from two pieces.

Source: The Complete Beatles Chronicle by Mark Lewisohn

'Yesterday' was fully completed this day. The string quartet included: Tony Gilbert (first violin), Sidney Sax (second violin), Francisco Gabarro (cello) and Kenneth Essex (viola). Complete now in its stunning simplicity, the song was mixed into mono.

The rejection of 'If You've Got Trouble', recorded on February 18, meant that Ringo had still to record a lead vocal for the now almost completed Help! album. Being a country western fan, he plumped for a cover of 'Act Naturally' by Buck Owens and the Beatles recorded it in 13 rhythm track takes. George played acoustic guitar, Paul provided harmony and Ringo overdubbed his vocal.

The Beatles recorded a new Lennon-McCartney song called 'Wait'. It was left unissued until in urgent need of one more sons, the Beatles pulled the tape from the library shelf, polished it up and included it on Rubber Soul.

Source: The Complete Beatles Chronicle by Mark Lewisohn

Twickenham Film Studios, St. Margaret's, Twickenham and NEMS Enterprises, Sutherland House, Argyll St. London

More post-sync work at Twickenham for the Help! soundtrack. With this, the Beatles' contribution to their second feature-film was complete. Like its predecessor, Help! was given a royal world premiere at the London Pavillion cinema on Piccadilly Circus, in central London, on Thursday 29 July 1965.

With his second book of prose and verse, A Spaniard In The Works, set for publication on June 24th, it was also time for John to do the publicity rounds once again. Between 8:00 and 8:30 this evening in the NEMS office in central London he was interviewd by Wilfred De'Ath for an insert into the Saturday June 3rd edition of the somewhat austere weekly BBC Home Service programme The World of Books. These were paricularly interesting interviews for John Lennon.

Source: The Complete Beatles Chronicle by Mark Lewisohn

Studio Two, EMI Studios, London

The second of three mid-June recording sessions at Abbey Road, competing the non-soundtrack side of the forthcoming Help! album. On this day, working a 2:30-6:15 afternoon session, the Beatles began and completed (in six takes) John's mainly acoustic ballad 'It's Only Love'.

Source: The Complete Beatles Chronicle by Mark Lewisohn

A remarkable day's work at Abbey Road, dominated by Paul and perfectly illustrating this young man's mastery of three different styles of musical composition and singing. It was on this day that he continued recording 'Yesterday', the song which, by public acclaim, will always rank among his best.

But it was more than just a great tune. It was also trendsetting recording (June 17) employment of a string quartet for the first time on a Beatles record introducing a new era: the group would continue to utilise strings and orchestras on a regular basis to the end. Typifying their working relationship, Paul assisted George Martin with his score, adding little touches here and there.

Two takes of 'Yesterday' were recorded by Paul alone, acoustic guitar and vocal, between 7:00 and 10:30 pm and then the four-track tape was set aside for completion on the 17th. (Newspaper of the time made a fuss of the factthat none of the other Beatles played on the recording, and that they weren't even present in the studio, but the session tape reveals that George, if not John and Ringo, were certainly there.)

What makes Paul's recording of 'Yesterday', the supreme melodic ballad, all the more remarkable, is that it directly followed the taping of 'I'm Down', a quasi-soul/rock and roll song delivered by Paul in the most larynx-tearing, cord-shredding style. This was started and completed in seven takes during a 2:30-5:30 afternoon session along with the first song to be taped this day, Paul's folk-rock 'I've Just Seen A Face', begun and finished in six takes.

Source: The Complete Beatles Chronicle by Mark Lewisohn

On June 13, 1965, a song was recorded by The Beatles that would become their most famous song and the most recorded song of all-time with over 2,500 cover versions. The song was “Yesterday” but Paul McCartney was the only one who played on it and he also wrote the song (it is credited as Lennon-McCartney but actually John didn’t contribute). Paul had his backup only by a string quartet on the song recorded for the British album titled “HELP!”

Twickenham Film Studios, St. Margaret's, Twickenham

The embargo restricting publication of the Queen's Birthday Honours list was lifted during the night of Friday, June 11, so news of the Beatles MBE awards was splashed across all of the British daily newspapers this morning. The Beatles were at Twickenham Film Studios to view a rough cut of Help! for the first time when they were besieged by representatives of the world's press, radio and TV and so convened a press conference. Radio and television interviews went into bulletins across the globe during the afternoon and evening.

One such interview, with George Yateman, was packaged together with film and performance clips and screened in New York on the educational channel WNDT (Channel 13) on Wednesday, June 30th, in the program British Calendar: News.

During the evening of the 11th, as the embargo was lifted, Paul was interviewed, by telephone, by BBC staff reporter Ronald Burns, 1 min, 40 secs of which was broadcast in Late Night Extra. Another phone interview, Peter Haigh chatting to Brian Epstein, was included earlier in the same program.

June 11, 1965 - Paul and Jane at Heathrow Airport just arrived back earlier than planned from their holiday in Portugal. Brian Epstein asked Paul to return to London for the June 12th announcement that the Beatles were to be awarded M.B.E. medals later in the year.

Nothing happening today

With the movie Help! completed, the Beatles have decided to enjoy some well deserved time off.

A new stereo mix of "I Want To Hold Your Hand" was produced by Norman Smith between 10:00 and 10:30 this morning at Abbey Rd, destined for Beatles albums being compiled this year by EMI affiliates in Australia and the Netherlands.

Today, another day of rest.