Someone explain the beatles era music to me

SixPapaCharlie

SixPapaCharlie

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OK, I am in my early-late thirties (clinging to that)
When I have gone to concerts, it is stadiums full of people and hours of "entertainment" <-- I put that in quotes because to people in their early-mid forties it is just noise.

So tonight as the Merlot was running out, I went on a Beatles research kick and came up with questions.

Concerts
When I find footage of the fab four, it is always smaller venue stuff and usually indoors. Did they play stadiums? They were HUGE why no 2 hour concerts of them at the garden or major things like that? Are giant concerts a newer thing and didn't exist then when they were around? Did they tour? If so, how did people get tickets?

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I always think of them as bad boys doing drugs, and scaring parents but every clip I see of them, they look like Eddie Haskell. Clean cut and Be-Boppin around on stage like modern church bands. I get that things have changed but have they changed that much? They look cleaner cut performing than I do when I go to work each day but I know my Grand mother thought they were satanic. really?

I have noticed this with the Rolling stones too. When I listen to "Sympathy for the devil" or "Paint it black" I feel like they are the Glenn Danzig of their day but they wear turtle necks and dance like teens at homecoming.

The message behind the lyrics is utterly metal but Mick Jagger looked like Mr. Furley from threes company. But in his time was he a badass and setting trends with his apperance?

I get the feeling that these bands were on the cusp of a change because when I see early videos of Ozzy,he is on the other side of the transition. He has very similar material (to Stones, Animals, not so much Beatles) but is doing the big crowed thing and full on dark sort of look.

The doors are another that seem to be on "this" side of that transition and I understand their concerts were getting Jim arrested and such.

What has changed
So back when the precursor to music I love was developing (anti whatever music with rebellious themes and dark messages) had the concept of a concert as I have experienced them just not been invented yet?

Even in other Genres? I mean Elvis was playing to giant crowds, doing full length shows?

How is the live performance perspective of music different? Lets remove the internet. Obviously if Slipknot comes to town, I jump online and buy tickets but before the internet, I would call Ticketmaster and go to a guns and roses show with 30,000 people.

How did people go to see the Beatles, stones, Elvis?
What were their concerts like?
And were they really perceived as these dark "evil" bands?

This is one of may favorite songs, sung by guys that look like they should be covering a Monkees tune.

 
Also, The Animals (video above) were Beiber before Beiber was beiber (haircut-wise)
 
Add "Yellow Submarine" to your NetFlix queue so you can answer your question and see why this guy was one of the best animated film characters of the Sixties.

char_26391.jpg
 
The Beatles went from "I want to hold your hand" to "Revolution" over time. Elvis, Beatles are pretty benign by today's standards but keep in mind we were still very Puritan with our music. When EP walked into Sun Studios and cut "That's alright mama" in the early 50s, it was all over with. :) Elvis held some pretty prolific concerts too. My grandmother saw him at the 1956 Tupelo fair. He went on to do some bigger shows.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
How did people go to see the Beatles, stones, Elvis?
What were their concerts like?
And were they really perceived as these dark "evil" bands?

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The Beatles did Ed Sullivan for the TV promotion, but also did huge outdoor stadium concerts in the big cities around the country. I know they did concerts in NY, LA, Atlanta, and probably all of the large cities in-between. Allegedly, their sets were short and were mostly overwhelmed by screaming 14 year old girls. They stopped touring because their music evolved well beyond what 4 guys could reproduce on stage. Also, not all of them enjoyed the touring environment.

I don't think the Beatles were perceived in a negative light other than following a few dumb statements made relatively early in their careers, and then after they became long hared hippie types in the late '60's which probably completely turned off a large swath of the public which was fine with the bowl cuts and matched suits they started out with.
 
As I said a few months ago:

50 years ago today the Beatle appeared on Ed Sullivan. Where were you?

I was only 4 but I remember it.

Four or five of my older siblings were down in the TV room, gathered around the B&W console, all excited, waiting for the big moment.

I'm up in my bedroom playing, being that I'm only 4 I'm really not into the fervor. The radio is tuned to KXOK in St. Louis and a Beatles' song comes on.

So I saunter downstairs, stick my head into the TV room and with a cocky, smug and full of myself attitude (some traits are picked up early in life) announce "you guys are wasting your time, The Beatles aren't going to be on the Ed Sullivan show tonight!"

One of my brothers looks up and asks, "why do you say that?"

Me, "because I just heard them on KXOK. They're in St. Louis, not New York."

Them, "you little idiot, music on the radio isn't live, they're playing records."

That's the night I learned that music on the radio wasn't live. :idea: . :redface:
 
I guess maybe you had to be there.

It was kind of like the music of our lives, and affected many of us.

It started as "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You" - well crafted and harmonious pop tunes.

I think it started to get weird by these albums:

Rubber_Soul.jpg


revolver_800.jpg


There was starting to be a subtle shift to the depth of their lyrics and their musicality. We all just started hearing things like sitars and other experimentation as they were apparently experimenting with things as well.

Some of my favorites from that epoch: Norwegian Wood and In My Life.

As an exercise, on a long road trip it might be interesting to listen to all their albums in chronological order. Looks like they are available in their entirety on YouTube.

Thanks for the memories!

BTW, I saw them at RFK Stadium in Washington, though honestly I can barely recall it.
 
FastEddieB said:
BTW, I saw them at RFK Stadium in Washington, though honestly I can barely recall it.
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What do you recall?
How long was the concert? did they have an opening act?

MY dad once told me what someone above said that they would have a concert but only play 5 or songs. Just on stage, jam, off stage.

I never quite understood if that was the sort of thing that would be art a stadium or more of a large club.

By today's standards, that would start a riot.

What all do you remember?
 
One thing I always found cool about the beatles was their albums were better if you listened to the whole thing. I can't really see just listening to a song off Abby road. It s one I like to start and listen to the whole thing.

That is also a record where I am impressed that these 4 guys wrote all of that. It is so diverse. I can see how they may not be able to reproduce some of it live on stage as someone mentioned above.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
OK, I am in my early-late thirties (clinging to that)
When I have gone to concerts, it is stadiums full of people and hours of "entertainment" <-- I put that in quotes because to people in their early-mid forties it is just noise.

So tonight as the Merlot was running out, I went on a Beatles research kick and came up with questions.

Concerts
When I find footage of the fab four, it is always smaller venue stuff and usually indoors. Did they play stadiums? They were HUGE why no 2 hour concerts of them at the garden or major things like that? Are giant concerts a newer thing and didn't exist then when they were around? Did they tour? If so, how did people get tickets?
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The Beatles were at the forefront of "big venues" and had to invent systems that are still in use today to be able to play to big crowds. Things like on stage monitors.

I can't imagine how difficult it would be to keep their schedule from '62 through '65. They were working.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_Beatles'_live_performances
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
One thing I always found cool about the beatles was their albums were better if you listened to the whole thing. I can't really see just listening to a song off Abby road.
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Especially "The Medley" on side two. Eight songs, starting with "You never gave me your money" and ending with...well, of course..."the end." ("You Never Give Me Your Money" "Sun King" "Mean Mr. Mustard" "Polythene Pam" "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" "Golden Slumbers" "Carry That Weight" "The End")

They all blend together beautifully and are still just a joy to listen to. The Beatles were indeed unique and plied many uncharted waters but they grew apart as they matured.

What I always thought was funny, is that everyone thought Ringo would fade away into the sunset upon the Beatles breakup but he had the first solo commercial success with the two albums he released in 1970 and they were both good!

McCartney OTOH went on to form Wings and continued to cater to 14 year-old girls...what an absolute dark era for him....cranking out uninspired, superficial crap ("Band on the run" or "Let 'em in" anyone?). "Live and Let Die" was about the only decent song they ever put out.

Oh, wait, I forgot about McCartney's duet with Michael Jackson, "the girl is mine"...that one was far worse than Wings even!

There's not much that'll get me to change a radio station quicker than a post-beatles-era McCartney song.
 
Henning said:
Yes, the Beatles sold out stadium shows.
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So did Count Basie.

I think you're seeing the difference between 1964 and 1974, nothing more.

Elvis was considered a "bad boy" in his time as well. He performed "colored" music to white audiences. Now, he's just considered wildly tacky.
 
MAKG1 said:
So did Count Basie.

I think you're seeing the difference between 1964 and 1974, nothing more.

Elvis was considered a "bad boy" in his time as well. He performed "colored" music to white audiences. Now, he's just considered wildly tacky.
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I've noticed that I'm the only one who wears a rhinestone jumpsuit to work these days.
 
timwinters said:
Especially "The Medley" on side two. Eight songs, starting with "You never gave me your money" and ending with...well, of course..."the end." ("You Never Give Me Your Money" "Sun King" "Mean Mr. Mustard" "Polythene Pam" "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" "Golden Slumbers" "Carry That Weight" "The End")

They all blend together beautifully and are still just a joy to listen to. The Beatles were indeed unique and plied many uncharted waters but they grew apart as they matured.

What I always thought was funny, is that everyone thought Ringo would fade away into the sunset upon the Beatles breakup but he had the first solo commercial success with the two albums he released in 1970 and they were both good!

McCartney OTOH went on to form Wings and continued to cater to 14 year-old girls...what an absolute dark era for him....cranking out uninspired, superficial crap ("Band on the run" or "Let 'em in" anyone?). "Live and Let Die" was about the only decent song they ever put out.

Oh, wait, I forgot about McCartney's duet with Michael Jackson, "the girl is mine"...that one was far worse than Wings even!

There's not much that'll get me to change a radio station quicker than a post-beatles-era McCartney song.
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Good post, with a couple of points I'll challenge.

Band on the Run was actually *the* decent Post-Beatles McCartney album. But he basically rejected his "rocker" side and went to a bunch of really sappy ballads. One song he did as a solo act which still holds up is "Maybe I'm Amazed" which is still a favorite of mind.

The guy who did some really good work immediately after the Beatles was George Harrison. You'll find a half dozen outstanding songs on "All Things Must Pass", along with way too much filler material. But with a few exceptions, his work mostly dropped off after that.
 
If you want to discuss non-typical concerts I'll try and remember a couple of the Grateful Dead shows I've attended. There's a band with virtually no radio air play that sold out venues at every stop. I'll conceded the Dead were a tad different than the Beatles ;)
 
I don't think it would be possible, and particularly in a blog post to explain to anyone the cultural and emotive change in the 60s, which the Beatles were a major part.

As for the music, the very early Beatles stuff was derivative and rather pedestrian. It wasn't until they put some edge(60s era 'edge') to their music that it started to be remarkable. As Lennon and McCartney grew, their styles emerged and they were able to translate those emotions and drives with music.

I won't pretend that they are some kind of esoteric mantra, they are, after all just singers in a rock and roll band, but they were part of a cumulative reaction by the youth of the world to change the status-quo of the greatest generation.

Also, trying to pin down the 'Beatles' over their 8 year career would be extremely hard. They started as some angry toughs from working class families that played and sang for drunk working stiffs, into a group of suit-wearing, smiling, polished young men with slightly longer hair than was normal, to a bunch of drug-addled angry men frustrated at almost everyone and everything they came in contact with before breaking up.

BTW, that concert list is incomplete. It doesn't show the San Diego date which was in Aug in the mid 60s. They played Balboa Park near downtown. It wasn't a sell out. My older brother was allowed to go, but only if he took his little brother and sis. It was hot, and humid, and noisy, and screaming, and jumping, and cops everywhere. I kept going back for water alone because my brother wouldn't miss any of the show. Of course, that led to a problem later when the Beatles came on that I really, really, had to go. So I went ahead a peed myself on the way to the bathroom, running and holding my sisters hand until the bathroom door. Although I was pretty young, it was the best concert I ever saw, and will stay with me forever. My sis would say the same thing.
 
docmirror said:
BTW, that concert list is incomplete. It doesn't show the San Diego date which was in Aug in the mid 60s. They played Balboa Park near downtown. It wasn't a sell out. My older brother was allowed to go, but only if he took his little brother and sis. It was hot, and humid, and noisy, and screaming, and jumping, and cops everywhere. I kept going back for water alone because my brother wouldn't miss any of the show. Of course, that led to a problem later when the Beatles came on that I really, really, had to go. So I went ahead a peed myself on the way to the bathroom, running and holding my sisters hand until the bathroom door. Although I was pretty young, it was the best concert I ever saw, and will stay with me forever. My sis would say the same thing.
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There are links in the list for big tours -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles'_1965_USA_Tour
 
pilot_dude said:
If you want to discuss non-typical concerts I'll try and remember a couple of the Grateful Dead shows I've attended. There's a band with virtually no radio air play that sold out venues at every stop. I'll conceded the Dead were a tad different than the Beatles ;)
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:rofl::rofl::rofl:"Hey dad, look at all the naked people!" (Heard from my friend's 11 year old son at the last show at the LA Collesium.):rofl::rofl::rofl: Non typical indeed.
 
timwinters said:
McCartney OTOH went on to form Wings and continued to cater to 14 year-old girls...what an absolute dark era for him....cranking out uninspired, superficial crap ("Band on the run" or "Let 'em in" anyone?). "Live and Let Die" was about the only decent song they ever put out.



Oh, wait, I forgot about McCartney's duet with Michael Jackson, "the girl is mine"...that one was far worse than Wings even!



There's not much that'll get me to change a radio station quicker than a post-beatles-era McCartney song.
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Although technically not a Wings song, Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey is fun. Not exactly a 14 year old girl song.

Band on the Run isn't too awful for what it is/was intended to be. Not sure 14 year olds care about that one either. Heh. ;)
 
pilot_dude said:
If you want to discuss non-typical concerts I'll try and remember a couple of the Grateful Dead shows I've attended. There's a band with virtually no radio air play that sold out venues at every stop. I'll conceded the Dead were a tad different than the Beatles ;)
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lol I sure could tell some good stories about GD adventures, if my fried brain would allow me to remember any.

I wasn't around for the Beatles explosion but Octopus's Garden was one of the first songs I ever learned how to play on the guitar.
 
pilot_dude said:
If you want to discuss non-typical concerts I'll try and remember a couple of the Grateful Dead shows I've attended. There's a band with virtually no radio air play that sold out venues at every stop. I'll conceded the Dead were a tad different than the Beatles ;)
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Yeah, they sold out a LOT of big venues...60,000+ wasn't unusual...but it was the same 60,000 dead-heads that followed them across the US to every concert! ;)

A similar phenomenon later with Phish.

I went to a Grateful Dead Concert and they played for seven hours. Great song!

What does a dead-head say when he runs out of weed? What is this crappy music?

Actually I really like the grateful dead and the spin-off, new riders of the purple sage.
 
To understand a generation's music you need to listen to it while doing that generation's drugs.
 
How to feel old -

One day as I walked into class, I overheard two girls talking. One said, "Did you know Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?"
 
Maybe I'm the only Baby Boomer on the planet who has never bought a Beatles record, but I was never particularly impressed with them. Their innovations in rhythm and musical structure must be acknowledged, but I don't care for their lyrics and never much liked hearing them perform their own work.

I like their stuff best as instrumentals.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
One thing I always found cool about the beatles was their albums were better if you listened to the whole thing. I can't really see just listening to a song off Abby road. It s one I like to start and listen to the whole thing.
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Yeah, Abbey Road is considered by some (me) to be their best album. It was the first popular pop album that played best in it's entirety instead of a collection of songs.

Bad boys/good boys: The standard for good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable, mainstream vs counterculture all changed around 1967-68. Before that, a non-standard mop top was controversial. Kids could be sent home from school for hair on their ears or in my case, an oversize natural. After that many parents longed for a neat longish mop top over an unkempt shoulder length hippie hair... or a neatly trimmed natural over a blown out Afro. Take note of this; sh*t changed in a major way around '67-'68. Rebelliousness turned violent, pop music turned 'hard', later some of it got dark. Put another way, the WWII Baby Boomers B*tch Slapped Ozzie and Harriet's America (look it up).

British Invasion: The very dynamic British pop music scene gave birth to the Invasion in this country when a whole bunch of British pop groups and artists got hot in the US. This pre-'67 music had a couple of different flavors but would seem very mild stuff today. The Beatles were giant within the invasion and sort of transcended it. The Stones were part of it but they were edgier because they leaned closer to the themes and sounds of American black blues music. There were concerts of all types but typically the groups would tour the indoor arenas of major US cities. The Beatles blew all that up when they came and were mobbed everywhere they went. Why? They were good but more important they just hit the wave right. Everything lined up for their first visit to the US and Beatle-mania was born (as had already happened in England).

ClimbnSink said:
To understand a generation's music you need to listen to it while doing that generation's drugs.
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Certainly after '67 or so, drugs become the secret ingredient. Just like coffee fueled the enlightenment, LSD and pot fueled the 'movement', the counterculture, the 60s (and 70s). Concerts changed from listening to music and screaming at performers to festivals and 'be ins' where you joined like minded folks, perhaps dropped acid, maybe smoked some pot or just got a contact high from the massive clouds of pot smoke. Behavior simply followed the path the drugs took people (see nudity). Going to a music festival today and the LSD/psychedelic mix lies underneath the Ecstasy driven funning and smilng and hugging under the aural and visual joys electronically generated entertainment. Yeah, you have to understand the drugs. Oh, the early and later Beatles music is pre and post LSD among other things. They got 'experienced' and everything changed except the fact they were 4 unusually talented musicians.
upstateny said:
How to feel old -

One day as I walked into class, I overheard two girls talking. One said, "Did you know Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?"
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Try this on: Golfers at Beatles hometown of Liverpool

Postscript: Were the Beatles 'satanic'? Part of that comes from the book named after the Beatle song "Helter Skelter" that psychotic mass murderer Charles Manson liked to reference when ranting about the coming apocalypse with his crazed followers. Great book and story that. In honor of that bit of the Beatles story, try this from the Grammys. Sir Paul intro'd it by saying "I finally passed the audition so I'd like to rock a bit. Rock a bit right now!"
Helter Skelter
 
It is interesting because they predate me by a bit. For me it was Metallica and Pantera, Slayer, etc.

My dad would tell me that the Beatles were controversial and considered by his parent's generation to be whatever the 60s term for hardcore was at the time.

I listened to them and it sounded like children's music.
Yellow submarine, octopus garden, etc

I had trouble understanding how to my grandparents this was "the devil's music" when to my horribly mutilated musical taste a lot of their songs were no more hard core than Rubber Ducky by the Bert and Ernie.

Granted, helter skelter, Maxwell's silver hammer and a few others had viloent themes but even maxwell was sang like a kids song.

So it is hard to put myself in a place where I can say "Oh this s why they were considered too edgy for some of the baby boomers' parents"
 
We went to see these guys in open race tracks (Altamont), inside old theaters (the Filmore), at fairs, in football stadiums (UOP), in pastures (Woodstock), and in clubs (the Doors at Whiskey A-Go-Go).

The Beatles did it in baseball stadiums (candlestick, yankees statidum), at the Cow Palace in SF. anywhere 40,000 kids could fit.
 
MAKG1 said:
Elvis was considered a "bad boy" in his time as well. He performed "colored" music to white audiences. Now, he's just considered wildly tacky.
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Yes.

The Beatles started out as a bridge. Bringing Black music to white audiences. Once they established their initial musical credibility, they were able to branch out and explore.

The Beatles (and Elvis to an extent) played a big part in making R&B popular among white audiences. Much like what George Gershwin and Benny Goodman did for Jazz in the 1930s.
 
Once Beatlemania subsided a bit in the mid-late 60s, there was some very good, and very elemental music being made. Sure, the Beatles covered pretty much all the standards of the day, and even some vintage stuff. But if you can look past just the Beatles to some of the more definitive garage bands of the day, you found decent writing, producing, and music. To be fair you also found some real crap. Neil Sedaka has a lot to answer for from the early 60s. The Monkees were perhaps all that went wrong with 'rock and roll', but I can't really blame the band members for that.
 
Beatles. Meh.

Honestly, there is much better music from that era. Stones, The Who, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Steppenwolf, Pink Floyd...
 
One measure of impact is the themes in current media. I see a lot of references to 60s music, and culture still today. Some of it has become cliche or used as a parody("groovy") while other stuff has become iconic.

I saw these guys in OK a few months back. http://thefabfour.com/ It was a great show. I liked the left handed bass player which was pretty interesting. Also, they do a full set from various times in the Beatles history. If you have a chance to go, it's a lot of fun.
 
Regrettably, if you need someone to explain The Beatles era music to you, you will never "get it."
 
kyleb said:
Good post, with a couple of points I'll challenge.

Band on the Run was actually *the* decent Post-Beatles McCartney album. But he basically rejected his "rocker" side and went to a bunch of really sappy ballads. One song he did as a solo act which still holds up is "Maybe I'm Amazed" which is still a favorite of mind.
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Maybe I'm Amazed is indeed an excellent song, I'll give you that one. So...okay...maybe Wings had a couple of good songs. But, you can tell that Nate's a pup since he likes Band on The Run and doesn't think it's teeny-bopper music. :)

kyleb said:
The guy who did some really good work immediately after the Beatles was George Harrison.
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Agree completely, George (may he rest in peace) had some great solo albums after the break-up. I still have a few...on vinyl.
 
As a 30-year veteran of the radio business, this thread has been fun to read. The growth of stadium shows has much to do with the technology to properly stage and promote them.

When the Beatles played Shea Stadium in NY, they used the house PA system built for ball games. Even for $4 a ticket, the sound had to be a disappointment in the stands. (If you could even hear it over the screaming girls.)

Promotion of local concerts in the '60s relied heavily on radio and posters. Newspapers didn't reach teens cost-effectively, TV was expensive, and there was no internet. Today, you can announce a concert tour and have tickets in some stops sold out within hours, thanks to the internet and mobile devices.

There was a right-place-right-time element to the popularity of the Beatles, but I think the two biggest keys were production quality and songwriting. Time has been kinder to McCartney's stuff, although Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance" became an anthem.

Harrison's first album was three discs because he had a ton of songs he'd written that were rejected for inclusion on Beatles albums. A couple good Harrison tunes made the cut over the years, including "Here Comes the Sun" and "Taxman." The growing dominance of McCartney's material was part of the impetus for the split.

As far as figuring out why smiling, relatively clean-cut bands like the Beatles could have been considered edgy, just look at the pop music stars of the late 1950s and early 1960s. You'll see that the Beatles were just the dot in the middle of the trend line.
 
Before reading the last post, I, too, was thinking of John Lennon post-Beatles.

Erratic is a good way to put it, especially when combined with Yoko, but there were still flashes of brilliance. "Imagine" is a classic that still makes me long for the heyday years when anything seemed possible. And "God" and "Working Class Hero" still strike the right note every time I hear them.

His death affected me more than any other celebrity death ever did, before or since.

Though losing Warren Zevon and Lou Reed hit pretty hard as well.
 
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Yeah, sad to think what Lennon might have wrote over the years, look at Clapton.
 
Oddly, the Beatles music drove a wedge between my father and myself, but it has drawn my daughter and I closer. She is a real Beatle fan.

The music was fresh, new, in touch with younger people who were being told to go fight a very bloody war. It was a great escape, along with other diversions. ;)

"I Wanna Hold Your Hand" was a number song, all he wanted to do was hold her hand. Good stuff!

It was a simpler time, life was exceptionally good as I remember. Young people were waking up to their political power to influence the country. Civil rights struggles, drugs, music, engineering break through, free sex (birth control pills), Woodstock, radical fashion changes, freedom to hitch hike all over the country with no worries.
 
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