Beatles at Hollywood Bowl, Dodger Stadium get spotlight in August
August is a key month in the Beatles’ history as it relates to time the Fab Four spent in Southern California. The group played its first Los Angeles concert Aug. 23, 1964, at the Hollywood Bowl, which was recorded in hopes of being released as a live album.
The Beatles returned a year later for two more Hollywood Bowl shows Aug. 29 and 30, 1965, both of which also were recorded after record company executives decided the 1964 recordings overall weren’t of sufficient quality to release on their own.
This weekend also brings the 50th anniversary of their performance at Dodger Stadium on Aug. 28, 1966, the next-to-last concert the quartet played before quitting live performance entirely after their show the next day, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.
All four of the L.A. shows in 1964-66 were promoted by then KRLA-AM disc jockey Bob Eubanks, who often tells of how he took a second mortgage out on a house he owned to come up with the money to bring the Beatles to L.A. the first time around.
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Recordings from the Hollywood Bowl shows remained in the vaults at EMI/Parlophone Records in England and Capitol Records in the U.S. until 1977, when producer George Martin oversaw the official release of the only Beatles live album, “Live at the Hollywood Bowl.”
Now the tapes from those shows also provide the basis for the forthcoming new version of “The Beatles: Live at the Hollywood Bowl” album being released by Capitol on Sept. 9 in conjunction with the Ron Howard-directed documentary “Eight Days a Week” premiering in U.S. theaters on Sept. 16 and also streaming exclusively on Hulu on Sept. 17.
Tapes of the Bowl concerts recently located at Capitol in Hollywood were found to be superior to those stored in EMI’s vault in England, according to Giles Martin, who collaborated with his father, George, on the mashup soundtrack for the Cirque du Soleil “Love” show in Las Vegas and has since overseen several Beatles-related music releases.
Martin and Abbey Road Studios engineer Sam Okell have also worked with modern technology that has further allowed them to better separate the music at the Hollywood Bowl shows from the screams of nearly 20,000 teenagers who were at the concerts.
“It doesn’t sound like Steely Dan — it’s still the Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl,” Martin told The Times recently. “But I think now it really captures the energy of the band at those shows.”
Two tracks from the new album — “Twist and Shout” and “A Hard Day’s Night” (the latter to be added Friday) — are included in a new Spotify Beatles playlist, “Come Together.”
In addition, on Friday, the Dodgers will note the 50th anniversary of the band’s performance there with a Beatles Night promotion, including a Dodgers/Beatles towel giveaway and a fireworks show after the game against the Chicago Cubs.
randy.lewis@latimes.com
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