Beatles 50th Blog

The Beatles at ABC Cinema, Northampton

Adelphi Cinema, Slough

In the late-morning the Beatles had an engagement with a TV crew from Associated-Rediffusion, which had decided to dedicate half of the next edition of its 30-minute current affairs series This Week to the subject of the Beatles and Beatlemania.

The group consented to an interview, filmed in the back of a hire car driving around London. Owing to the cramped conditions it wasn't impossible for all four Beatles to be in camera at the same time, so George and Ringo filmed together, then John and Paul.

Exactly nine minutes of interview footage, cut from the 10 mins 40 secs that was shot, made it into the finished program and this was supplemented by more than 20 Beatles photo stills and also by a studio converation about (though not with) the group, inserted live into the Thursday November 7th transmission, 9:10 to 9:40 pm.

In the evening, the Beatles resumed their nationwide package tour with two "houses" at Slough. ("Oh, that's near us", the Queen Mother had remarked to the group when, during their presentation to Her Majesty after the Royal Command Performance the previous evening, she had asked them where they would next be playing. Slough is only two miles from Windsor).

Prince of Wales Theatre, Coventry St. London

The Beatles' famous Royal Command Performance, in the presence of the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, with Lord Snowdon. Though appearing seventh on a 19-act bill, they were undoubtedly the night's main attraction.

As they had done on Val Parnell's Sunday Night At The London Palladium on October 13th, the group put all of their tried-and-trusted stage tricks into the performance. They began playing the opening number, "From Me To You", before the curtain parted, then John and Paul simultaneously moved their microphone stands closer to the audience at its end; they bowed at the close of the second song, "She Loves You", Paul, clearly nervous, cracked a joke about Sophie Tucker being their "Favorite American Group" before the third song, "Till There Was You", before the fourth and last number, John and Paul returned their mike stands for the applause to die away before uttering his notorious jewellery-rattling witticism as an introduction to "Twist And Shout", finally, Ringo came down from his drum podium to join John, Paul and George, the curtain closed behind them, they bowed to the audience, then to the royal box, and then to show exuberance, sprinted off the stage.

Historically, telivising of the Royal Command Performance has alternated between the BBC and ITV, this year it fell to the latter. Pictures were networked across Britain by ATV the following Sunday, November 10th, 7:28 to 10:30 pm, with the Beatle's entire four-song performance included. However, when the BBC radio Light Program transmitted hightlights from the show *also on November 10), it omitted "She Loves You".

Odeon Cinema, Leeds

A few minutes of one of the Beatles two "Houses" this evening was recorded for use in a court case involving the Performing Right Society. The tape no longer exists. After this night, the tour resumed on the 5th.

The Beatles at City Hall, Sheffield

Odeon Cinema, Winchcombe St. Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

The opening night of "The Beatles Autumn Tour", their 4th trek around Britain inside nine months, earning them £300 a night. Identical for every performance, the Beatles repertoire for this one comprised "I saw her standing there", "From me to you", "All my loving", "You really got a hold on me", "Roll over Beethoven", "Boys", "Till there was you", "She loves you", "Money (That's all I want)", and "Twist and Shout".

But the screaming was so loud that no one, not even the Beatles could hear more than a few notes of it.

Today, the Beatles were "Off".

Narren-teatern, Grona Lund, Stockholm, Sweden

Abbey Road activity this day saw the production of another stereo mix for "Money (That's what I want), overseen by George Martin in a 2:30-5:30 pm session. To avoid any further generational loss caused by more tape-to-tape copying, two separate two-track mono mixes were used for the stereo album, one for each channel.

This was the final item of preparation for "With the Beatles", and the album was issued on Friday, November 22, 1963, eight months before "Please Please Me", to astonishing British advance orders of 300,000. Domestic sales swiftly passed the half-million mark and in 1965 topped one million. The album even earned a brief placing in the singles actively few in number in the early 1960's - was calculated at that time on sales of any record, irrespective of diameter.

Meanwhile, in Sweden, the evening before flying home to England and their first "airport reception", the Beatles returned to Stockholm to tape an appearance on the Sveriges Television pop show "Drop In", broadcast from 7:00 to 7:30 pm on Sunday, November 3rd.

The recording was made before a live audience at Narrenteatern, a small theatre within the Stockholm amusement park Grona Lund, and it began at 7:00 pm, following afternoon rehearsals. Although intending to perform only two songs, "She loves you", and "Twist and Shout", presenter Klas Burling persuaded the Beatles to extend their repertoire to four, these two in the same order plus "I saw her standing there", and "Long tall Sally". Very clearly enjoying themselves, although they had not eaten all day, the Beatles also joined in with handclapping during the program's closing theme tune, named appropriately enough "Drop In".

On October 31, the group took the morning flight back to London Airport.

Sporthallen, Hamngatan, Eskilstuna, Sweden

A few hours before the Beatles concluded their concert tour of Sweden, with one final performance, George Martin - back at EMI Abbey Road was overseeing the entire set of stereo mixes, edits and banding for their second album, all done in a single three hour session, 10:00am to 1:00pm. The tracks were worked on in the order that George had devised for the finished disc: "It won't be long", "All I've got to do", "All my loving", "Don't bother me", "Little Child", "Till there was you", "Please Mister Postman", "Roll over Beethoven", "Hold me tight", "You really got a hold on me", "I wanna be your man", "(There's a) Devil in her heart", "Not a second time", and "Money (That's what I want)". Only this 14th and final track would require more, later attention.

Borashallen, Bockasjogatan, Boras, Sweden

The Beatles had one performance at 7:30 pm, preceded by a half-hour spot during the mid-afternoon signing records at the Waidele record shop in Boras.