The Beatles at Candlestick - Myths & Legends of the Last Concert

One of my all time favorite photos of John Lennon.
The other night, my nerdy (in a different way than how I am nerdy) boyfriend asked me what superpowers I would like to have if I could have any power in the world. My first thought was the power to fly, but then I thought that with my luck, I would get attacked by birds (I am scared of birds) and wrapped up in power lines. So, I decided that I wanted the power to go back in time but not change history. There is no need for me to mess up the world. Why would I like that power? Well obviously that way I could go back in time and see a Beatles concert, watch the Fab 4 cross Abbey Road on Aug 8, 1969, talk to the Apple Scruffs on the steps of 3 Savile Row, the possibilities as a Beatles fan would be endless. Then he tells me that I can only pick one Beatles event. What would be it? Gosh.....there are so many things! I decide that I want to see the Beatles in concert. But which show? I first decided to kick out any shows that I have seen videos of. So out goes Washington D.C. '64, Sydney '64, Shea '65, Germany '66, Japan '66, etc. I decide that I want to go back and see Candlestick Park. Sure, we have some audio recordings, but the last few minutes are missing. I want to see that show for myself. But since I am just an obese school teacher and not someone with superpowers or someone who owns a time machine, I have to go with the next best thing, and that is Barry Hood's film of the day. Barry was a 15 year old Beatles fan who wanted to make a documentary about the Beatles and brought his 8mm video camera with him to the San Francisco concert. If you have ever seen any color footage of Candlestick Park, that is Barry's film. Some of it is seen in the DVD called "The Unseen Beatles." In 2006, he wrote an article for Beatlefan magazine about that. I found that article online and am going to share some of it with you. Oh, and I just added some random photo taken that day. I hope you enjoy it

This just in! (October 23, 2012):  Barry Hood has emailed me and let me know that you can order his DVD of the footage at this site!  Awesome!


www.televideos.com

The Beatles at Candlestick - Myths & Legends of the Last Concert
by Barry Hood

In 1966 I won the Kodak teen-age movie awards for a sound-on-tape 8mm film I made on Disneyland. I had a habit of following Walt around Disneyland. As a matter of fact, I think that's why Walt created security. Their first target? Me. I had long hair. Tidy but a little long over the ears. So what? I simply cut it and still followed Walt all over the park even more. When he stepped out the gate behind the firehouse above which he had an apartment, there was that darn kid again stalking Walt with his movie camera.

For the next year, 1967, I was going to enter the Kodak contest with a film about The Beatles, but admit, I lost interest when the foursome didn't show up again on another tour in '67 or ever again. My intent was to add more film to that which I had. And I was disappointed. But it wasn't until years later that I realized the historical importance of the document which I had already shot.

I had grown up in San Francisco but at age 11 moved farther north. In the summer of '66 I sent for tickets to the Candlestick Park gig. These were being sold by KYA radio through mail order. I rode the Greyhound bus 250 miles with my mother all night long on the 27th in order to get to San Francisco on the 28th. I skipped the first day of a church camp to attend the Candlestick show with my mother on the 29th.

We left our hotel in the Market Street area, at about noon. Our Muni bus arrived at the far corner of the parking lot just as the fog was breaking up. Here I began watching, listening and filming the day's events.

I remember it like it was yesterday. We spent the day at Candlestick. We even brought a sack lunch. As music from the new album "Revolver" played on the park's P.A., I shot various angles of the stage being built out on 2nd base, along with the sound system and two wire fences which surrounded the stage. Other kids were busy doing their job of putting up handmade posters. The sound crew was busy setting up two massive columns of speakers on the infield.

As the spectators began to fill the ball park, there was a sudden scream which was coming from an area very nearby. I sprinted in my Beatles' boots to the end of the stadium. Just then the Beatles' bus rolled under me and I got a clear shot of George taking a photo of me. Neil Aspinall is seated in the window directly in front of George.
Imagine the biggest act in the world not being allowed to haul their equipment to the stage. They were forced to manually cart their equipment across the field.

Mal Evans and the roadies did get into a bit of a "row" with the Giant's groundskeeper. He told them point blank they could not drive onto the field with their equipment van. You can see Evans clearly exchange some terse words and display obviously disgruntled body language. In my footage we see Evans, Ed Freeman, also The Ronettes road manager, and Sandy Scott, the tour manager from GAC, General Artists Corp, the booking agency who put the tour together.

Ringo does not swing the mic. around and sing into the counterweight at the beginning of the Concert, as the sound system manager says. I have heard this misnomer in other places but never challenged it. You can see this clearly in my film. The mike is in the same position as it was prior to entering the stage. Later when Ringo's solo comes up, the mike is positioned before him.

One gentleman dressed in a dark trendy suit with white shirt goes to two cases sitting side-by-side on the field, picks them up and moves them closer to the stage. He walks out from behind some people a split second later without the cases! I can see this clearly by viewing it a frame at a time. Perhaps this is Tony Barrow and one of the cases is a tape recorder, the source for the famous recording which was never released in audio.

The Beatles take one last final stage bow, and my footage ends. But we see George in the playing position, both head and hands, and he just stands there while John's right hand is not in playing position. John is swiftly walking to the amp and appears to unplug his guitar. Many say that the first few notes of "In My Life" were played. If this is true it was definitely George! As George plays, Paul walks over to the stage mike but stops, turns around, and says something to George. offstage, inaudible to the audience. George looks up and says something back. Then Paul continues to talk into the mike.

What were these final words? A final good-bye perhaps? Does anyone know? There my footage cuts out. The audience got the impression that an encore was starting but, suddenly there was nothing and The Beatles abruptly climbed into the Loomis armored car and left the stadium, and their public performing career was over. Forever.

I'm proud of the old color 8mm Kodachrome footage. It still sparkles, and the color has not faded. With today's technology we should be able to extract even more detail. Plus there is a whole section of material which has never been transferred nor released, which contains the opening acts! There's Barry Tashian and The Remains and also Bobby Hebb backed up by The Remains.

My mother, now 90, remembers it well. She even attended the concert with me. But she sat in the cheaper seats where there was plenty for screaming. I was in the box seats. I could hear the concert perfectly. Some say they couldn't hear a thing. Much was dependent on where you were seated. It all has to do with which way the wind blows and apparently the wind was blowing the music directly to me. Candlestick was famous for its circulating winds. This was one of the reasons the San Francisco Giants had a new stadium built.

When I got to the church camp a day late, where I was the night before made me the envy of every teenager, and the object of annoyance to the counselors and staff. 1966 was that kind of a year.