This rare video series shows The Beatles in their early days on the 1964 World Tour in Melbourne Australia
John Lennon You Can’t Do That Melbourne The Beatles World Tour 1964
These 3 rare videos of The Beatles are fun to watch. The world-famous rock band are In their early days during the 1964 World Tour in Melbourne Australia.
The video is not pristine and the sound is sometimes off but these are classic and priceless videos.
The performances have all the talent, energy and charm of The Beatles. You can see how polished the band was but also pick out their mistakes.
I was reading The Beatles Are an Opening Band about The Beatles breakout tour in 1963 when they were second banana to lesser artists.
The Beatles started in 1963 on the British concert circuit as an opening act with Helen Shapiro. As incongruous as that seems today, Helen Shapiro was the star. It took the release of “Please Please Me” to turn the concert audiences massively towards The Beatles.
At the end of the video play, YouTube suggested The Beatles in Concert for Shell (1964) Part 1 of 3. I had never seen this concert video before.
Paul McCartney Saw Her Standing There Melbourne The World Tour 1964
The Beatles come on stage, plug-in, tune up doing all their own stage tech work. Paul McCartney breaks out with “I Saw Her Standing There.” His singing is bang on including the screaming and whoos!
John Lennon’s rhythm guitar is all jangly distortion. George Harrison sounds more country than rock, doing all Carl Perkins licks for the lead guitar.
Fans throw (toilet) paper rolls on stage and go crazy.
Video: The Beatles in Concert for Shell (1964) Part 1 of 3
The Beatles World Tour 1964 Melbourne
The Beatles had a well honed stage act. John and Paul take turns doing the lead singing while they back each other up on harmony.
John sings lead and George and Paul sing harmony on “You Can’t Do That”. The vocals are near perfect. It’s fun to hear the odd flat note.
They were performing live without in-ear monitors or on stage monitors. You can’t hear your singing part when the music is loud and the crowd screaming.
It’s hard to imagine today how crude public performance technology used to be in the 1960s. Everyone wears custom fitted in-ear monitors today.
Paul shows his mannerly, friendly and cute personality introducing “All My Loving.” John’s guitar gets even more jangle, almost pure distortion.
There are plenty of side shots of Ringo Starr alternately happy and bored drumming high on the riser.
THE BEATLES in concert for Shell (1964) – Part 2 of 3
John introduces “She Loves You” at the start of Part 2. He aces the song and the harmonies are perfect in a strong performance of their big hit.
Video: The Beatles in concert for Shell (1964) – Part 2 of 3
“Till There Was You” and “Roll Over Beethoven” get cut in the video. The Beatles and Brian Epstein their manager refused to allow the complete performance to be broadcast.
Ringo Starr Melbourne The Beatles World Tour 1964
Paul gets to push his voice on “Can’t Buy Me Love” while John goes back to jangly distortion and George does his country thing.
John’s intro antics would have been funny in the 1960s. Today it’s embarrassing.
At the end of the song Paul starts to lose his voice.
The Beatles in concert for Shell (1964) – Part 3 of 3
Part 3 starts with John belting out the rocker “Twist and Shout” a favorite rave up cover song originally recorded by The Isley Brothers. The crowd goes wild as expected.
Video: The Beatles in concert for Shell (1964) – Part 3 of 3
Paul introduces the last song by telling the fans, and all the fans on The World Tour” that they’ve “lovely”.
Fans go crazy in Melbourne The Beatles World Tour 1964
They Paul and the band tear into Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally”. Lots of screaming from The Beatles and the audience.
They next world tour would not include as many rock and roll covers.
The Beatles were about to release 4 new albums of material before the end of 1965 – “A Hard Day’s Night”, “Beatles for Sale”, “Help!” and “Rubber Soul”.
For more about The Beatles 1964 World Tour, check out Wikipedia and Larry Kane’s
Ticket to Ride: Inside the Beatles’ 1964 and 1965 Tours That Changed the World
Leave a Reply