I picked up a second hand version of The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl LP for £3 pounds at a steam fair over the weekend. The record was in tip top condition. My brother-in-law played it on his turntable and there was hardly a scratch or noise even though he didn't clean it or dust it off before spinning it.
The record was released in 1977 by EMI and years after the Beatles had broken up. The actual recordings were made at the venue on 3 track tape recorders. They were re-mastered by George Martin and Geoff Emerick to multi-track masters for the LP issue.
The LP contains a medley of Beatles songs from early in their career such as Long Tall Sally, A Hard Day's Night and Twist and Shout. The live recordings were made in 1964 and 1965 at the Hollywood Bowl venue.
There was a lot of controversy about whether the album should have been released at all but eventually all parties concerned agreed. I can understand why. The live performance is marred by intensive and continuous screaming generated by hysterical teenagers. The screaming was so loud that the Beatles themselves could not hear what they were playing and it is a tribute to the band that they were able to perform in tune.
When I went to see the Beatles in London in the early sixties I could hardly hear them for the screaming. I could not believe that the audience were simply not interested in the music and were content to show their feelings by hysterical wailing. No wonder the Beatles stopped performing live.
You were better off listening to them on 45 singles played on a Dansette. The persistent screaming led to another form of noise war. Groups had to amplify their music to make the noise of a caterwauling audience irrelevant. It is no wonder so many young people,including the artists themselves, got ear damage from listening to concerts from the late sixties onward.
When I got the record home I cleaned it and dusted it off. There was hardly a scratch or any damage or static for that matter. I could see why. It had hardly been played. I got as far as the third track and stopped playing it; the screaming had got the better of me. The music had been spoilt despite the best efforts of the Beatles and the original sound engineers - Hugh Davies and Pete Abbott. Geoff Emerick's valiant efforts to bring out the best on the re-master tapes had almost failed.
It looks like this is the only recording of a live Beatles performance which has been released as an official LP. It is not available on an official CD and it sounds like a bootleg album. If you want to hear what going to a live Beatles concert was like, then I recommend that you obtain a copy of this album. But going to the real thing meant that you heard almost nothing of the live performance.
My brother-in-law used to go and see the Beatles and the Swinging Blue Jeans and other Mersey beat artists live at the Cavern club. There was no screaming there and then as the audience just wanted to hear the best rock and roll. I wish I could have gone there. I was too young and too far away.
