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Artist News Releases
Beatles rooftop performance arrives on streaming services
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 28 January 2022
As The Beatles’ final live performance atop their Apple Corps HQ in London reaches its big 53rd anniversary this Sunday, a newly mixed recording of it has arrived on the streaming services.
Now, here’s a thing – and this might shock you – 53rd anniversaries aren’t really that big a deal. This obviously all comes off the back of Peter Jackson’s recent ‘Get Back’ documentary.
Have you seen ‘Get Back’? Bloody hell. I was quite happy going around telling everyone that it was just another example of Jackson making something overlong that could have been done just as well in less than a third of the time he used. Then it turned out that ‘Get Back’ is actually fucking incredible and, if anything, a bit short.
Anyway, the ‘Get Back’ documentary follows the recording of final Beatles album ‘Let It Be’, and the whole thing leads up to this rooftop concert, which turned out to be the last time the band ever played live together. They performed five songs, some of them multiple times.
Having enjoyed getting to see that performance within the documentary, some fans were disappointed that a ‘Let It Be’ box set released alongside ‘Get Back’ did not include the audio from the rooftop gig. But worry not Beatles fans, that audio is now available.
Newly mixed by Giles Martin – son of George – and Sam Okell, the audio version of the rooftop show is now ready to be accessed on various streaming services.
“I always thought the rooftop concert is better to be seen and listened to, rather than just listened to”, Martin tells Rolling Stone. However, he says, the response to ‘Get Back’ changed his mind. “There was such an overwhelming request: ‘Why don’t we have this?’ That’s why we did it. I think this is more of a historical document for fans. I’ve made it so fans can listen to everything I have, really. I cut off a bit at the end, which is basically just wind noise, and that’s it. I mixed the whole thing from start to finish in its entirety”.
But if you’re sitting there thinking that remastered audio is lovely and all, but you would actually quite like to see the pictures along with it – and on a fucking big screen at that – well, there’s good news for you too.
This Sunday, which, as you will remember, is the actual 53rd anniversary of the performance, a 60 minute concert film with that new audio mix will be screened at the IMAX cinema on London’s Southbank. Book tickets for that here.
