I heard this from the kitchen on the 6o’clock news, and got all excited….then I rewound the item and couldn’t believe it. People are getting all in a lather about 11 seconds of film of someone’s tv in 1966 showing the Beatles only ‘live’ appearance on TOTP, playing Paperback Writer. The original BBC video recording was, of course, wiped, but this was discovered in, of all places, Mexico.
Now, I’m as big a Beatles nut as anyone, but to describe this as ‘the holy grail’ seems a bit rich. There was a long piece on the later News as well, with an interview with someone eulogising about it in Liverpool at the Beatles Story exhibition (by the way, that’s a bit crap anyway).
Is it me…? There is loads of great quality footage of the Fabs, so I really can’t see the significance of this besides a faintly interesting story about how this was made and survived, but it adds close to zero about what we know.
I think the total lack of interest and comment speaks volumes…!
What a non-story this was. They kept saying it was “live” and it wasn’t. They were clearly miming in the first place and Paperback Writer had been synced up to what was obviously silent footage.
The later TotP recordings referred to later in the report seemed more interesting, even if the T Rex clip was just a familiar one that they’d grained-up in order to make it look authentic. A bit desperate really.
Miming to records was banned in 1966, but groups would generally re-record the backing track and sing live over the top, which I suspect is what happened here hence the ‘live’ interest. You are right Moose – I think the news report used the record overlayed onto what presumably was silent film footage (surely no one had movie cameras in 1966 which could capture sound anyway).
Now, if they found the whole thing on tape with the original soundtrack it would be of interest, but even then I’m not sure the majority of the civilian population watching the news are at all interested in the minutiae of the Fabs history.
“…groups would generally re-record the backing track and sing live over the top…
Often it wasn’t even that – recall an interview with a hitmaker lead singer who said the SOP was to have the BBC person arrive late morning at the studio where the re-recording was to take place. Their manager would say “Look, the boys won’t want to be interrupted – let’s go for a couple of drinks or some lunch while they get down to business”…when the slightly tipsy BBC bod returned a few hours later, they were handed a tape of the hit song as it was originally recorded, with the vocal track removed.
That Pop Go The 60s clip of Gimme Shelter from ’69 is basically the record with Jagger doing a live vocal. Very strange bidniss.
I think it’s extremely significant. We finally get to see what these legends looked like!
* I assume there is no other footage of the fab 4.
Two lost episodes of “The Likely Lads” have been found and, in a spirit rare in these days of vinly-only releases and the like, can be picked up for a fiver on the latest dvd of the feature film.
It means “found” episodes have equalized … it’s now 10 apiece!
Twenty years ago it was 7-13.
Interesting. Looks like 10 pounds to me though (for that DVD)
I made four slices of toast this morning, and as God is my witness, each piece came out of the toaster with a clear image of a different Beatle on it! They’ll all be on eBay later today.
So – four Beatles slices of toast.
Let me guess – Stuart Sutcliffe, Pete Best, Brian Epstein and George Martin.
Am I close?
Did they have a jam session?
Very good! 😀
Or were they covered by Marmalade?
Nah, they’re a Marmite band actually.
I only got Paul Young on mine.
….I’ll get me shiny jacket.
In my opinion the Beatles are probably as good as pop music is ever likely to get but I too failed to get too excited by this piece of news. Despite my admiration- nay adulation- it’s clear that the Fabs (in their post-Hamburg/Cavern phase at least according to legend) were never the most, er, dynamic live experience and- as has been pointed out by my learned colleagues earlier- this ‘performance’ was not even properly ‘live’. For me the ‘Holy Grail’ (if it even exists) would probably be ‘Carnival of Light’ (even if only for one listen…which would be enough I guess) or the 27 minute take of ‘Helter Skelter’ (ditto) or the famed appearance on ‘Juke Box Jury’ (I have the full audio but somewhere the video must also exist). The university ‘expert’ was embarrassing (was Lewisohn unavailable?). For me the two most exciting and genuine TOTP finds so far have been Syd-era Floyd doing ‘See Emily Play’ and that great Bowie (truly live) clip of ‘The Jean Genie’.
By the way- love Bolan to near-distraction but all the T.Rex clips on TOTP are virtually interchangeable.
The ‘holy grail’ recording must be the session that they did backing ‘Wally’ from Rory Storm & The Hurricanes on a set of standards whilst out in Hamburg. Pete Best didn’t take part, but the Hurricane’s drummer did, who was of course Ringo. Some acetates of these recordings were made, and they may still be out there somewhere. Alan Williams had one, but left it behind in a pub!
I have a memory of George miming intentionally badly in an amusing way on a TV show from the 60s. Or was that The Rutles?
They did quite a few ‘Ready Steady Go’s’- could have been there I guess. That show always thought miming was ‘fun’ for some reason and often did pantomimic versions of current hits ‘mimed’ by other acts. Have you seen the Stones doing ‘I Got You Babe’?
https://youtu.be/NwvVuCjwAO8
A similar story with Oz mid-60s pop show Kommotion – sometimes necessity is the mother of invention. As Wikipedia puts it…
“Alongside the appearances by local pop groups, the producers also came up with a simple and cost-effective way of showcasing current international hits. In those days, purpose-made music videos (then called “film clips”) were only just beginning to be used to promote new recordings. Australia’s great distance from the US and the UK meant that visits by major overseas acts were relatively rare, so the stock-in-trade for Kommotion was to use a troupe of young performers who danced and/or mimed to the latest overseas hits. The producers hired a group of about a dozen Melbourne teenagers, chosen for their looks, fashion sense and dancing ability.”
I’d pay good money to see footage of the Beatles backed by the TOTP Orchestra.