When Let It Be Special Edition and Peter Jackson’s three-part docuseries The Beatles: Get Back finally dropped toward the end of 2021, speculation ran high about what else there could possibly be left to share. Most fans know that are still hours upon hours of unseen footage from the sessions, so there’s that. And though the fabled performance on the Apple rooftop was presented in all its glory in the third installment of Get Back, not all of the audio tracks from that cold January 30th winter day on Savile Row — besides “Dig A Pony,” “I’ve Got A Feeling” and “One After 909,” which appeared on the original Let It Be — were part of 2021’s Let It Be overhaul. Lo and behold, Get Back: The Rooftop Performance, freshly mixed by Giles Martin and Sam Okell in stereo and Dolby Atmos, has come along to finally trump the Yellow Dog boots. Throw in a special one-night-only IMAX presentation of that same historic performance, and it’s like the Get Back series digs deeper into one of the more misunderstood periods in the band’s history.
Paul McCartney has often said the Beatles were a “good little band.” The bassist and his bandmates — John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr — were not on the best of terms when they came together in January 1969 to begin work on a new album. To complicate matters, they agreed to be filmed while they worked, and talked about taking the whole thing on the road, so to speak. Actually, they held long discussions with director Michael Lindsay-Hogg and other assorted associates about staging an epic concert at a multitude of exotic places under equally bizarre circumstances. You can see it unfold and then slowly lose steam in Get Back. In the end, no one wanted to go to the trouble and expense of getting on a boat and going to Libya or wherever and playing a show. Instead, they agreed to gather for a short, unannounced afternoon gig on the rooftop of their Apple recording studio and call it a day. They proved they were still a “good little band.”
For the Beatles, The Rooftop Performance wasn’t about recoiling of their past and playing a greatest hits set. The whole “get back” concept was really about the Beatles returning to their roots, forgoing the pageantry around Sgt. Pepper and the isolation of The White Album, and coming together as the “good little band” they were before the mania. They took some of the more new rugged songs — “Dig A Pony” and “I’ve Got Feeling” — that were still in development, and returned to “One After 909,” one of the first songs Lennon and McCartney were penned together. The tuned up and dallied through an impromptu “God Save The Queen.” Then they gave “Don’t Let Me Down” (the B-side to the “Let It Be” single) a try a couple of times, and blew through three versions of “Get Back” (none of which appeared on Let It Be, though the third one found a home on an Anthology release). They weren’t following a prepared set list, so who knows what else they would have played if the police hadn’t shut the whole thing down.
Of course, no one knew at the time that this would be the last live performance by the Beatles. They hadn’t played in a true live setting since 1966, when they stopped touring. Judging by the performance, you almost want to think this could have been a new beginning for the band. Just a few months later, they reconvened for Abbey Road and delivered one of their strongest records in the catalog. At that point, there was no reason to believe the Beatles couldn’t have gone on, mounted tours and held their reign as the greatest rock and roll band in the world. Unfortunately, things between the four, however, were not so sanguine. Lennon, McCartney and Harrison were all writing songs that eventually landed on their respective solo albums. The Beatles’ run as recording artists, much less a “good little band” in performance, came to a messy and sordid close. If anything, The Rooftop Performance is a wistful reminder of how just good it was musically right before it all came crashing down.
~ Shawn Perry
