Although they made an unannounced live appearance in January 1969 on the rooftop of the Apple building, The Beatles' final live concert took place on 29 August 1966 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California.
There was a big talk at Candlestick Park that this had got to end. At that San Francisco gig it seemed that this could possibly be the last time, but I never felt 100% certain till we got back to London.John wanted to give up more than the others. He said that he'd had enough.
Anthology
The Park's capacity was 42,500, but only 25,000 tickets were sold, leaving large sections of unsold seats. Fans paid between $4.50 and $6.50 for tickets, and The Beatles' fee was around $90,000. The show's promoter was local company Tempo Productions.
The Beatles took 65% of the gross, the city of San Francisco took 15% of paid admissions and were given 50 free tickets. This arrangement, coupled with low ticket sales and other unexpected expenses resulted in a financial loss for Tempo Productions.
Candlestick Park was the home of the baseball team the San Francisco Giants. The stage was located just behind second base on the field, and was five feet high and surrounded by a six-foot high wire fence.
The compère was 'Emperor' Gene Nelson of 1260 KYA FM, and the support acts were, in order of appearance, The Remains, Bobby Hebb, The Cyrkle and The Ronettes. The show began at 8pm.
I was the MC, and, as any Giants fans will know, Candlestick Park in August, at night, was cold, foggy and windy. The funniest thing this night was one of the warm-up acts, Bobby Hebb. He stood up on the stage at Candlestick Park, with the fog, and the wind blowing, and he was singing 'Sunny'! It was tough anyway to work a ballpark as an MC, especially as The Beatles were taking their time to get out. I was trying to entertain a crowd that was shouting, 'Beatles, Beatles, Beatles.'
The dressing room was chaos. There were loads of people there. The press tried to get passes for their kids and the singer Joan Baez was in there. Any local celebrity, who was in town, was in the dressing room. They were having a party in there. They were having a perfectly wonderful time, while I was freezing my buns off on second base!
The Beatles Off The Record, Keith Badman
The Beatles took to the stage at 9.27pm, and performed 11 songs: Rock And Roll Music, She's A Woman, If I Needed Someone, Day Tripper, Baby's In Black, I Feel Fine, Yesterday, I Wanna Be Your Man, Nowhere Man, Paperback Writer and Long Tall Sally.
The Beatles knew it was to be their final concert. Recognising its significance, John Lennon and Paul McCartney took a camera onto the stage, with which they took pictures of the crowd, the rest of the group, and themselves at arm's length.
Before one of the last numbers, we actually set up this camera, I think it had a fisheye, a wide-angle lens. We set it up on the amplifier and Ringo came off the drums, and we stood with our backs to the audience and posed for a photograph, because we knew that was the last show.
The Beatles Off The Record, Keith Badman
These days alot of old bands like to proclaim their "Farewell Tour" to the public in hopes of garnishing much higher ticket sales. Often it's been very effective but the fans caught on when many times the bands ended up playing two, three, or even more so called "final tours".
That said, can you imagine how packed the arenas and stadiums would have been in 1966 if The Beatles had made an announcement that it was their final tour? Ticket scalpers would have had a field day!
Here's a recording of Day Tripper from the Candlestick Park concert: http://www.thebeatlesrarity.com/2009/03/12/the-beatles-rarity-of-the-week-76/
I was 9 years old and in love with their music. My Dad took me to this concert.I could barely hear them above the screaming ninnies. Still it was an exciting evening I'll never forget.
There is a comment by George above saying they took pictures. Has anyone seen any picture from this concert? I have only one.Thank you to Happy Nat for providing that Day Tripper clip.
They did bring their own cameras to document the end of 4 years of gruelling world tours and everything else. You can see published pics of them taking the stage snapping away. HOWEVER!!!!! If there is ONE picture I want to see, they had their roadie Mal Evans take THE final picture and I can't find it anywhere. I HAS to be a personal shot that they kept for themselves...... They all 4 went to the front of the stage and turned their backs to the audience and "pop". I'd LOVE to see that. It's also cool that before the final song, Paul did his "it's time to go to bed" speech then suddenly got nastalgic about it all. Instead of jumping into I'm Down", which was their closer the last 2 years, he hit a G note on the ol' Hofner and slammed into Long Tall Sally, their big show stopper from their Hamburg days......."One more time for just us there, lads?!!"
A small correction: Emperor Gene Nelson, who emceed the concert, was morning disc jockey at 1260 KYA. There was no such station as KSFQ-FM.
Super Harlow
1260 KYA Radio
San Francisco, Calif.
So sad such poor attendence... if they only knew ...three years later came the impromptu concert on top of the Apple office in London it was the last time the Beatles played in public. Soooooo sad (sigh). I dream of what could have been. Would it have changed the outcome for John. I was too young to ever see them and for this I'm jealous and sad...the rebel Rolling Stones almost broke too thank god their still going strong drawing huge crowds of all ages to their concert imagine nearly fifty years. That could have been the Beatles too such a shame...