The Beatles Performed Their Last Live Gig 50 Years Ago. Here's the Story Behind the Rooftop ...
Ken Mansfield on his front-row seat to the Fabs' last public performance.
It was a frigid day on the Apple Corps rooftop in late January 1969, but the Beatles showed up anyway -- to play to a smattering of staffers and a camera crew. The informal show was filmed for the end of that year's Let it Be, a multimedia project that sought to return the Beatles to their roots.
It was an ad hoc gesture -- and the band was fatigued. Five stories below, clothes shoppers and stockbrokers watched on in a mix of amusement and indifference. They made it through a few takes of "Get Back," "I've Got a Feeling," "One After 909" and more before the gig fell apart due to complaints about noise and traffic.
But during those now-iconic 42 minutes, John Lennon and Paul McCartney exchanged a look that has stuck with Ken Mansfield, then the U.S. manager of Apple Corps, for fifty years now.
In that glance, Mansfield saw an understanding. "'It doesn't matter what we're going through. We're mates,'" they seemed to communicate in that second, he recalls. "'We've stood by each other's sides. And right now, we're being who we are.'"
Source: Morgan Enos/billboard.com
