10 things you never knew about the Beatles from a new documentary
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It's widely believed that the Beatles didn't get truly serious until 1966. That was the year of Revolver, their first "on purpose" LP masterpiece, and the equally bold artistic misstep of the infamous "butcher" cover. Their conversation turned more potent – touching on hot button topics like religion, war, and race – and their minds expanded with the use of psychedelic drugs.
Most crucially, they abandoned live performance, transitioning from mere flesh-and-blood figures on show at local baseball stadiums to mystical artistes who dispensed vibrant works from their studio laboratory in Swinging London. This was the time of transition – pop to rock, moptops to men, black and white to color – that led to their seminal Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album the following year.
Rather than examining this career apex, Eight Days a Week, Ron Howard's long-awaited new Beatles documentary – in theaters today and streaming on Hulu starting Saturday – fills in some crucial backstory. Released just after the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' final concert, the documentary is a whirlwind celebration of their touring life. What's more, it challenges the traditional notion that the group's live career was little more than fondly remembered hysteria that ultimately led to More Important Work. "We just wanted to play," Ringo Starr says early in the film. "Playing was the most important thing."
Eight Days a Week is a respectful retelling of the Beatles' early tale, but in glorious Technicolor. Howard, whose affection for mid-20th-century history has been well documented with box-office hits like Apollo 13, Frost/Nixon and A Beautiful Mind, underwent an exhaustive search to recover long-lost footage, which was then lovingly restored to cinema quality. All assembled, the band's story takes on the drama and scale of a Biblical epic that's scarcely believable even half a century later.
"By the end, it became quite complicated, but at the beginning things were really simple," says Paul McCartney in voiceover. Simple isn't always bad. Before they became technical recording masters, the Beatles were, as McCartney often says with charming understatement, "a great little rock & roll band."
Eight Days a Week lets you experience them like never before, and feel the frenzy of those thrilling years that came and went much too fast.
1. Real-deal Beatles live footage is as awesome as you'd hope.
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Technically, the earliest surviving color film of the Beatles in concert was shot in February 1962, but the silent, jerky, home-movie-quality reel does little to conjure the raw excitement of a Scouse rave-up. Instead, Eight Days a Weekopens with footage taken on November 20th, 1963, at Manchester's ABC Cinema. Filmed as part of a Pathe News short entitled "The Beatles Come to Town", the six-and-a-half minute clip captured the group performing "She Loves You" and "Twist and Shout" – and a crowd of young women hilariously overcome with ardor. It represents the first known color film to include sound of the band performing. Professionally shot, it provides a stunning opening to the documentary, as well as an electrifying glimpse of what was like to sit front row at an early Fab Four concert.
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In addition, Howard also makes use of the familiar footage taken at Liverpool's Cavern Club on August 22nd, 1962. Filmed in black and white by the Manchester-based Grenada Television network, it shows the band mere days after Ringo Starr became a full-time member. In fact, he's so green that he's hasn't yet managed to train his hair into the band's signature moptop. The historic clip is most likely the first-ever film of the four together, and certainly the earliest to include audio of the band.
2. McCartney still gets misty discussing the first time Starr played with the Beatles.
The Beatles famously included Pete Best on the drum kit during the early years of their career, but when he was too sick to make one of their Cavern gigs in February 1962, they called in another local stickman: Ringo Starr. They first became friends months earlier while playing the red-light district in Hamburg, Germany, alongside Starr's band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. Though their union had been primarily offstage until that point, Starr was more than happy to sit in with his new mates.
The usually reserved McCartney became noticeably teary as he remembered the first time the Fab Four joined forces. "Bang! He kicks in, and it was an 'Oh, my god' moment. We're all looking at each other going, 'Yeah. This is it.' I'm getting very emotional." Starr himself offered an equally tender observation. "I'm an only child, and I felt like I suddenly had three brothers." He would join his rock brethren for good in August 1962.
3. When the going got tough, the Beatles had a rallying cry.
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Though they would ultimately look back at the time fondly, it wasn't always easy being in the pre-fame Beatles. Before the screams and the money, they had to make do with playing eight hours a night in Hamburg for what amounted to beer money, all while sleeping in a glorified broom closet. Dates in Liverpool were often derailed by onstage power outages, overflowing toilets, van crashes and the occasional punches from local gangs or jealous boyfriends in the crowd.
When spirits sagged, John Lennon took it upon himself to lighten the mood with equal parts humor and encouragement. "We used to have this saying that I would chant and they would answer when they were depressed and thinking that the group was going nowhere and this is a shitty deal and we're in a shitty dressing room," he says in an archival interview. "I'd say, 'Where are we goin', fellas?' And they'd go, 'To the top, Johnny!' And I'd say, 'Where's that, fellas?!' And they'd say, 'To the toppermost of the poppermost, Johnny!' And I'd say, 'Riiiiight!' And we'd all sort of cheer up."
See the rest of the story at Business Insider