The Beatles' Feb. 11, 1964 Washington Coliseum concert is one of their best-known shows. One huge reason is it was their first on American soil. And while it's not a rare video among collectors, it has circulated in incomplete forms of varying quality thanks to bootleggers. An edited form was also included in both releases of "The Beatles' U.S. Visit"
- You can see memorabilia and images from the closed circuit broadcast in the slideshow at left. Also at left is the video trailer.
Another reason is that back in 1964 it was videotaped and presented in theaters all the country four times as part of a special film show featuring the Beatles concert, plus recently recorded live footage of the Beach Boys and Lesley Gore.
All the various forms of the Beatles' footage seen up to last November have been incomplete, missing "Long Tall Sally" and other incidental footage. When the Beatles finally hit iTunes in the middle of that month, the concert with unseen footage was included in the Beatles box set and also allowed to be streamed online until the end of the year.
The Beach Boys' footage has been available on DVD as "The Beach Boys' Lost Concert," but that DVD is missing "Monster Mash" and spoken introductions by Roger Christian, the KHJ Boss Jock who co-wrote "Don't Worry Baby," "Little Deuce Coupe" and several other Beach Boys songs with Brian Wilson. And the Lesley Gore footage has not been shown anywhere since originally screened.
Until now, that is. At 7:30 p.m. Feb. 11, 47 years to the day of the Washington show, the special concert screening from 1964 will be recreated at the Egyptian Theater in Los Angeles. For the first time, all three concerts will be shown in their original length and uncut.
Ron Furmanek, who worked on the Beatles archive footage seen in "The Beatles Anthology," is behind the event and says the screening will be "what you saw in March 1964 for the four screenings with nothing cut out." He calls the Washington show the first-ever pay-per-view concert.
"In March of '64, they ran it four times closed circuit through theaters all over the United States," he told us in a phone interview. Furmanek says the Beach Boys and Lesley Gore footage was taped after the Beatles. "They did a special 90-minute concert that you were able to pay your $2 and sit (and watch) in your local theater."
All the previous versions, even "The Beatles First U.S. Visit," didn't have what will be screened next month. "This was something that was missing and I found the master tapes in 1995. I worked on "The Beatles First U.S. Visit" a year or two earlier and we had to use a kinescope at that point because I hadn't found the videotape yet."
And though all the versions, including the one to be shown are in black-and-white, that wasn't the original plan.
"The Beatles' show was supposed to be in color," he says. "And it was going to be the very first color closed circuit broadcast ever with these new hand-held cameras that they invented. If you watch the concert, you'll notice five or six cameras and a few are hand held. At the last minute, the color was scrapped because of some problems with the tubes.
"That's why," Furmanek says, "the Beach Boys and Lesley Gore was recorded at NBC Burbank. They had the all-color studios. They could have easily went to CBS in Television City on Melrose or Fairfax or ABC at Prospect, which were black-and-white. But they chose Burbank because it was going to be recorded in color."
Furmanek is no stranger to the Beatles archives. He's been involved with restoring Beatles footage for over 20 years. "I was the first film archivist at Apple. I started back in '87, '88. I got the vaults all together. Basically, when you watch the 'Anthology' film, anything that looks super clear in there is my work, my restoration work and my discoveries," he says. "I'm an archive preservist, producer. I've got many titles."
One of the projects he has worked on was the Beatles' Shea Stadium film, the release of which is high on every Beatle fan's wish list. He says the bootleg versions that have appeared in the last few years don't come close to what the remastered version looks like.
"There was an auction a few years ago with some audio tapes, a rough soundboard recording from the stadium P.A. system, apparently, which is quite crude," he says. "It's nothing like the original tapes are. It might have nice fidelity, but it's raw. Microphones are going on and off.
"I found the original stereo tapes with M. Clay Adams in 1987," he says. "This bootleg is nothing but a mono P.A. feed. It's like what you heard if you were at the concession stand buying a hot dog. Whoever won that auction obviously synced that up with the picture. When I restored that film, I went off the original camera negatives. The film was shot in 35mm and the color is stunning off the negative. The bootlegs are off of a print that somebody found, a faded print that they color corrected."
"Take the footage off 'Anthology' that I did off the negative and then compare it to this current bootleg. You can see the difference," he says. "It's no master. It's just an old composite print. And when you have an Eastman Color print from 1965 or 1966, it's going to be faded beet-red or all brown."
"You can't beat the original camera negative. Apple has the originals. It doesn't have any fades. If there's a fadeout for a commercial, the negative doesn't have the fadeout," he says. "Shea Stadium, other than the sound issues, of any rock concert that was ever shot in the '60s of any group, I think Shea Stadium is the highest quality film. It looks better than 'Woodstock,' 'Gimme Shelter,' 'Monterey Pop.' It really does. Go look at it in 'Anthology." It's stunning. Put on the headphones and listen to it in 'Anthology'. You're going to hear some true stereo there, like 'Dizzy Miss Lizzy and 'I'm Down'."
He says the restored "Let It Be" looks equally fantastic."When I restored it, I sat down with (Neil Aspinall) and Derek (Taylor) up in the screening room where we were editing 'Anthology'. And they sat and watched the entire film. They were blown away. They couldn't believe the difference. It's a fun film to watch after I restored it. It's lively. It's crystal clear. There's no grain. There's no blow-up. There's one time Paul says something to George, but other than that, the movie's a lot of fun.
"It's not dark, it's not poor quality like the VHS or laserdisc that was released. It was shot in 16mm Kodachrome and Echtachrome and it's gorgeous. There's no problem with it. I remixed the entire second half of the film from the 8 track master multitrack tapes and it is in stereo, starting with the sessions in the studio and the concert on the roof."
And the video collection everyone is hoping for? "I restored and remixed all of the picture and audio for the promo films. That's all my work. They start in '65 and they're those funny black-and-white performances. The Beatles went into the studio. They actually videotaped most of them so they could ship them to different countries where they could not appear on TV to promote those records. These are not 'A Hard Day's Night' or 'Help!' These are just simple, mimed promotional videos, with a few amazing exceptions, like 'Paperback Writer' or 'Strawberry Fields Forever'."
"When the Red and Blue albums came out on CD for the first time, Apple simply serviced most of those again to promote the new CDs. When I was restoring them, I couldn't believe it when I found the 35mm camera cut negatives for 'Paperback Writer' and 'Rain.' And they were in color. Nobody had ever seen them in color. And look at the stunning quality I got out of those two negatives."
Why is this all taking so long to get released on DVD? "I have no idea when that will happen, but let's think positive," Furmanek says.
Will the Beatles/Beach Boys/Lesley Gore films be shown elsewhere besides Los Angeles? Furmanek says possibly they will. "It's non-profit. No one is making any profit. It's all for the American Cinematheque."
Will there be any special guests? "We hope to have some of the people who were there. Maybe a couple of the Beach Boys or Lesley Gore," he says hopefully. "We're going to have an intermission where the original intermission was in March 1964 right after the Lesley Gore and Beach Boys performances." The break will include an original commercial for a Beatles poster that was shown at the original screenings.
"It's going to be a lot of fun," he says.
That's a definite understatement.
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Comments
In 1973, I was lucky enough to meet Ron Furmanek. He worked at a Village record shop called Golden Disc. Over time, my friend and I were invited to Ron's home somewhere in New Jersey. His collection back 1973 was incredible. Albums and 45s from every corner of the world. The best part of our visit was when we went down into the basement and watched his 35mm print of "Magical Mystery Tour". I recall trading some Italian Apple singles with him that day. A day I will never forgot.
Thank you Ron (and Steve) for providing such an insightful & eminently sensible account of the state of play on these wonderful archival projects. We should all be thankful these exist in such wonderful condition because we will see them one day!
I think the movies will all be released on DVD/Blu Ray soon. Let It Be is probably most in demand. They don't release everything at once, but it would be nice if those were next.
Now there's a name I haven't heard in a while. Lots of us remember Ron going way back, and if you were lucky enough to be invited to his place or one of his viewings, it was like Christmas. Thank God we have Ron who is relentless in his pursuit!
and what about those of us who don't live in LA and already got the stereo and mono set?
Still pissed at Apple about this one.
As the story says, other screenings are a possibility. You can be certain I'll post any info I get about them, so be sure to check back.
Very interesting stuff!
Good one, Steve.
awesome, i love this concert. please bring the film to DC!
Stunning!!!! Terrific!!!! Amazing!!!! How about a new saga: "The Beatles on BLU RAY"
Wow, great article Steve! This really fires me up about future dvd releases of these projects. Ron Furmanek sounds like a really talented guy. The clips of these various things we saw on Anthology were breathtaking! Apple, please release these things while there are still First, Second and even Third Generation fans still alive! We ain't getting any younger!
Steve,
For those of us lucky enough to be in the L.A. area, do you have a link to get tickets for this screening?
Excellent interview. Hopefully there will be other screenings throughout the rest of the country, especially on the East Coast where the actual concert took place. A shame the Washington Coliseum is in the shambles it's in now as it would have been nice to have had a screening there. A DVD release with all the performances similar to the T.A.M.I concert would definitely be a welcome addition to any Rock collection.
Great interview with Ron Furmanek. I want to go to LA for the screening. It's unbelievable that Apple has this great film footage and won't release it.
Ron has done so much great work over the years not only in the visual, but in the audio realm as well.
Check out the remastered editions of RCA's Nipper's Greatest Hits series or the EMI Legendary Masters collections (now on Collectable's records). That's Ron's doing, as well. The quality of a lot of that stuff is unbelievable.
I remember when the second Capitol Albums box set came out and EMI sent out a video of The Beatles doing "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" to promote it. The clip was of immaculate quality (and, contrary to what Ron state in this article, was not included on the Anthology DVD). I can only hope that the entire show will soon see the light of day on DVD or blu-ray.
Thanks for the great interview! Always great to hear from Ron.
Hope you'll bring the film to NYC, there are a lot of old friends that want to see it!
Wow, so great to hear that all these ravenously sought-after, historic and long-overdue films are in such pristine remastered condition sitting in the vault where they will languish for years to come. Too bad the current remasters will be in need of another remastering by the time anybody sees fit to release this stuff.
I agree, Beatcrazy. Those who say 'yeah, great because they'll be out one day... how many original fans are starting to die off by the day now? How many of us 2nd gen will most likely be dead by the time these films THAT ARE READY TO GO AND JUST SITTING ON A SHELF are released? Anyone remember the Let it Be dvd that came out with the Naked cd. That was GREAT wasn't it?
.... oh wait. They pulled the rug out then too. Amazing. Apple is the ONLY COMPANY ON THE PLANET THAT DOES NOT WANT TO MAXIMIZE ITS PROFIT. The only one. Lucky us. Too bad RCA can't get all of the Beatles music and video. We'd be in hog heaven, like the Elvis fans.
Yeah... I sound negative. Sorry. 30 years of waiting will make you cynical. Great job anyway, STeve! Thanks!
OMG. PLEASE RELEASE THE SHEA AND DC CONCERTS ASAP. FEB WOULD BE GOOD FOR THE ANNIVERSARY. THE VIDEOS WOULD BE GREAT FOR 11.11.11 ( HA-HA ) AND LET IT BE FOR 09.10.11
since I had box seats for Shea '66, there must be a good film for that as well. I read when the remasters were released they claimed there was plenty of time to release them on bluray and that the sound was insane. Well don't wait too freakin long! And while we're at it- Jeff and Dhani need to put out more unreleased and alt takes by George, especially Valentine.
DON'T FORGET THE B/W PROMO FILMS FROM 1962-63. IN FACT, START WITH THE CAVERN FOOTAGE OF " SOME OTHER GUY'
This is about as cruel as describing the nuances of a 7 course meal from a 3 star Michelin restaurant to someone who does not have the means of ever experiencing that but loves fine dining.
Maybe Apple is waiting for the 50th anniversary of all this great historic Beatles film/video material. Shea in 2015? Dare I say... LIB in 2020?! Let's face it...they blew the 45th and 40th anniversarys of both of these last year! And as previously mentioned, the first generation fans aren't getting any younger and deserve to see/own this stuff in their lifetime!
I am so enthused about what I read here days ago that I've come back to read it all again! Will be GREAT STUFF COMING when Apple makes their move! Hopefully... in my lifetime!!!
That Lesley Gore was a big enough star to perform with the Beatles should make some purists' heads explode, but she was talented and still a great performer. I posted the story of her hit "It's My Party" on my Rockaeology blog at http://tinyurl.com/4oetjou -- it was produced by a young Quincy Jones.
Jones was in a race with Phil Spector to release the song. Spector had produced a version with the Blossoms, but Jones pulled off a clever stunt to beat out Spector. The Blossoms' version was never released.
She didn't perform with the Beatles for this show. Her footage was taped at NBC Burbank, as was the Beach Boys.
I was one of those teenagers that went to that closed circuit theatre showing of the Beatles Washington Coliseum concert and the "T.A.M.I " show on the same program , in March of 1964 (in Cleveland) - just in time for my 17th birthday -- WHAT a fab "birthday present" that was! DIDN'T see it again, until around 1978 when a small Beatle convention was being held at Playhouse Square, next to the theatre where "Beatlemania" was playing. WHO do you think was showing all the videos we saw at this mini-convention but RON FURMANEK ! IT was ALL on reels and being shown on a movie projector. WHAT a great day that was. THANKS RON for restoring all these films BUT I WISH they would release them SOON - We "first generation" fans are NOT getting ANY younger, and we would LIKE to own Shea, Let It BE and the promo films on DVD BEFORE we DIE!! LOL! So can you tell the "powers" that be, to "hurry it up" please??? WILL the Coliseum Concert and the Beach Boys/Leslie Gore film COME to Cleveland? It SHOULD - after all, home of the "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame" , AND a lot of Beatle fans here!! Rock on Ron - was nice talking to you, back in '78 at that convention in Cleveland, about HOW you obtained some of those films!
Great Article Steve, the Washington 64 and Shea 65 concert bits on the Beatles Anthology dvd set was awesome!!! Hopefully Ron Furmanek can push to get these Apple prints out of the vaults before 2035. Also I wonder if "She's a Woman" and I think also "Everybody's Trying to be my Baby" that were not in current prints of the Shea concert is lying around somewhere??
Steve,
Just finding and enjoying your article. I plan to be among the masses that watch in theaters around the country in the few weeks.
I'm perplexed, however, by remarks made by Mr. Furmanek (certainly an authority on his subject) about color television cameras of the day. To the very best of my knowledge the smallest color cameras in 1964 were huge. I was on that production crew. There were no hand held color TV cameras there, or anywhere in 1964 that I know of.
Regards,
Steve
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