| Holland
This material has been out beore but here it is in greatly upgraded quality
and its original PAL format. This was made possible thanks to Wogew, who
contributed a copy of a tv special broadcast in 1989. This included not
only pristine footage of them in Amsterdam and Blokker, but all six songs
from their terrific tv appearance in Hillegom.
The Blokker concert footage was originally part of a cinema newsreel
and thus filmed at 24 frames per second. When telecined for the PAL tv
system it was typically sped up slightly to 25 fps. To compensate for
this, I've applied a corresponding pitch correction to the audio.
The Hillegom footage was not shown complete in 1989. Rather, they showed
each song as an individual clip linked by some conversation in Dutch.
So I've had to fall back on the old bootleg version to plug the gaps.
Fortunately this only involves the opening moments, a few introductions,
and a few snippets of songs (the openings to Twist And Shout and Roll
Over Beethoven). You'll notice the picture quality change during these
moments - as they say, please 'do not adjust your set'!
I've also provided a remastered audio option for the Hillegom show, even
though the original soundtrack features Paul and George audibly singing
along with the records they are miming to. Take your pick.
The group also participated in an interview before their performance,
which is widely available in wretched quality on a number of bootlegs
(The Beatles Take Over Holland probably being the 'best'). With no upgrade
available, I decided not to include it here. It will be on a future collection
of tv shows.
Australia
The Beatles' final Melbourne concert was beautifully videotaped by GTV-9
in 1964. Sadly, Epstein viewed the tape after the show and - to the lasting
chagrin of future generations - denied them the use of four songs (I Saw
Her Standing There, Till There Was You, Roll Over Beethoven and This Boy).
The four songs were physically cut out of the videotape, forever consigning
them to oblivion. Why Epstein made this decision is hard to understand,
since this is arguably the best quality concert footage of them outside
of the legendary February 11 1964 Washington gig. A couple of small scraps
of Till There Was You and Roll Over Beethoven escaped the razor blade,
as well as about a third of I Saw Her Standing There... but not a trace
of This Boy.
All was not lost though, because the two final Melbourne shows were also
recorded to audio tape for some reason, using a near identical audio feed
as the videotape (only George's guitar is slightly softer). Poor quality
excerpts from both shows were booted in the early 70s, apparently taped
off the radio.The complete evening show eventually popped up in 1989 when
it appeared on Pyramid's Live In Melbourne and Paris (ten years later
the complete afternoon show surfaced on Yellow Dog's Australian Tour 1964).
The incomplete concert video has circulated ever since there were vhs
recorders, but it was only recently in 2004 that a master quality version
became available. This happened when a special, officially sanctioned
presentation was made for screening at Festival Hall on the 40th anniversary
of the concert. It included the complete surviving Melbourne videotape
(including support acts) and a rudimentary reconstruction of the missing
portions. A few years later, the master dvd of the presentation leaked
onto a torrent site long enough for it to spread amongst the Beatle community.
It was soon taken down, but Misterclaudel issued an NTSC version of the
incomplete show for those who'd missed it - however their version did
not include the reconstructions of the four missing songs.
In this new reconstruction I've gone back to the original PAL presentation
and made a number of improvements. Firstly, I've tweaked the picture slightly
to reduce the video noise - most of this was removable simply by applying
a grayscale filter, and the remainder through a small amount of temporal
smoothing. I've also completely replaced the audio for the four 'missing'
songs. In 2004 the audio for these tracks was taken from what was then
the best boot cd available, probably Australian Tour 1964. Since then
a much better copy has surfaced on Message To Australia, which I've EQ'd
to match the video soundtrack characteristics as closely as possible.
The missing video I've replaced with contemporary newsreel footage fashioned
into a mini-overview of their Australian tour. This includes footage of
them performing in Adelaide (still captures of which were used in the
reconstruction in 2004) and Sydney Stadium (not the football stadium -
Sydney Stadium or 'The Tin Shed' as it was better known was a boxing ring
that was demolished in 1970). Some of this footage is amazing, including
their windswept Sydney welcome and the unbelievable crowds that met them
in Adelaide and Melbourne. I hope it provides an exciting backdrop to
the equally exciting soundtrack of those four 'lost' songs.
Germany
Though there's been plenty of NTSC releases of the Munich footage, I
thought it was about time a PAL version was made commonly available. So
here it is. The complete concert appears to be lost, as only six songs
have ever been broadcast. Sadly, although there is some newsreel and cine
footage extant, there is no complete audio recording from which to make
a reconstruction.
Hob
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