finished
By Candlestick Park it was like: 'Don't tell anyone, but this is probably our last gig'
Paul McCartney
After 9 years and more than 1,400 shows....
Twenty-four thousand screaming fans couldn't be wrong. But what they didn't realize on that late August evening was that the Beatles didn't want to be there, that the band couldn't hear itself enough to sing on-key, and that this would be the last
Beatles concert ever.
Candlestick Park, San Francisco - August 29, 1966
This was the Beatles' last concert tour appearance ever, a 33-minute performance at San Francisco's Candlestick Park on Monday August 29, 1966. The Park's capacity was 42,500 but the Beatles only filled 25,000 seats, leaving entire sections of unsold seats.
Tempo Productions, which promoted the Candlestick Park show, was owned by Bobby Mitchell and Tom Donohue (aka "Big Daddy"), both popular KYA disc jockeys. In the summer of 1965 they had received a verbal agreement to promote the Beatles' two 1965 Cow Palace shows, but the contract was for some reason given to a San Jose promoter named Paul Cattallano. Tempo immediately took legal action against the Beatles for breach of contract, serving them a summons via a process server at the
Hollywood Bowl the day before the Cow Palace Shows. Eventually an agreement was worked out between the Beatles and Tempo's lawyers in which Tempo would promote the group's return engagement at Candlestick Park in 1966.
Odd facts:
The Beatles took 65% of the gross, the city of San Francisco took 15% of paid admissions and 50 free tickets. This, along with lukewarm ticket sales and other unexpected expenses resulted in a financial loss for Tempo Productions.
The oversize tickets were to large to fit the counting machines at Candlestick and had to be counted by hand.
The performance was taped by Tony Barrow at Paul McCartney's request and is available in bootleg format. The last song was truncated because the recorder ran out of tape.
Just before leaving the stage, John teasingly strummed the opening guitar notes of "
In My Life".
After the show
George Harrison said:
We'd done about 1,400 live shows and I certainly felt that was it...it was ridiculous , and it felt dangerous because everybody was out of hand and out of line. Even the cops were out of line...we've got to stop this...we've got to pack this in".