Rooftop concert

Illustration,Adobe Photoshop

Let It Be/Get Back recording sessions, Day #19, The Beatles’ rooftop concert (with Billy Preston); It was a cold day, and a bitter wind was blowing on the rooftop by midday. To cope with the weather, John borrowed Yoko Ono’s fur coat, and Ringo wore Mo Starkey’s red mac. Traffic in Savile Row and neighbouring streets came to a halt, until police entered Apple and ordered the group to stop playing. Photo by Ethan A. Russell

The Beatles

This is an account of the last public performance of The Beatles. Although not officially a concert, it was the last time anybody would ever hear the band perform live together.

Few Beatles fans had complaints about Peter Jackson’s recent “The Beatles: Get Back” documentary, but to the extent they did, there were some grumblings that the faithful wanted a way to hear the entire rooftop concert that makes up the last portion of the docu-series without the spoken interjections of the interceding British policemen or…

the beatles

On January 30, 1969, the Beatles (along with Billy Preston), took to the rooftop of the headquarters of Apple Corps to play one final concert.

David Remnick on how, half a century after the Beatles broke up, McCartney is still correcting the record—and making new ones.