“This type of music is all right in its place – it’s quite enjoyable,” says one man whose slicked-back hair, horn-rimmed glasses and double-breasted overcoat give him the air of a character from a late-60s sitcom. This is shown by the responses of a gaggle of businessmen who gather in the doorway of 2 Savile Row. Down below, on streets dominated by the elegant facade of the Royal Academy, a swelling crowd gathered, and their opinions were sampled by camera crews who asked the most simple of vox pop questions: “Do you know what music you’re listening to?” “Do you like the music you’re listening to?” “Do you normally like listening to the Beatles?”Īmong other things, the resulting footage – used in the original 1970 documentary Let It Be, and now recut by Jackson – proves that the Beatles could still tease out the prejudices of age and class. What happened that day highlights one of Get Back’s themes, something that is often overlooked: the group’s fascinating relationship with their audience and the wider public. Photograph: Ethan A Russell/Apple Corps Ltd ![]() ‘I think it’s a bit of an imposition to absolutely disrupt all the business in this area’ … the gig on the roof of Apple Corps. But for the viewer, that knowledge makes everything more compelling. Neither the band nor the people watching on the rooftop and down below are aware that this will be their last ever live performance. This magical performance forms the finale of Get Back, Peter Jackson’s new three-part documentary series about the Beatles. They played with a tightness and confidence that belied the last-minute nature of events, while a sense of urgency and drama was provided by two police officers, determined to shut everything down. On 30 January on the roof of 3 Savile Row, the London HQ of their company Apple, the four – joined by the US keyboard player Billy Preston – performed five songs: Get Back (three times), Don’t Let Me Down (twice), I’ve Got a Feeling (ditto), Dig a Pony and One After 909. The occasion is now fixed in their iconography. After weeks of sometimes difficult rehearsals and recordings, the Beatles and their new songs finally – and spectacularly – collide with the outside world. ![]() ![]() I t’s lunchtime on a cold Thursday in January 1969.
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