The documentary traces the band’s touring years as McCartney, Starr along with the late John Lennon and George Harrison won legions of adoring fans across continents.
Advertisement
I defy anyone who finds the tale of the band’s rise to global stardom all a bit worn by now not to be impressed with the incredible restoration of these live shows which have never looked, nor sounded better. “We’ll get into the studio, now we can really spend some time”.
That Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr were vehicles of a legacy that inspired many musicians during and after them was evident in the star-studded guest list of the premiere.
Asked how they are still able to stay so in tune when thousands of girls were screaming at the top of their voices, McCartney said: “It is wonderful actually”.
“It first began as just a fun, cool, creative adventure, then I became very intimidated by it when I realised how important it was to fans”, he told reporters. I was thinking in the early gigs we did we weren’t always in tune. “We happen to be two of them and here we are”, he said.
And Ringo, 76, said that he is surprised how many bands nowadays have to use different guitars for each song they perform, which was the opposite for The Beatles.
The film also charts the Beatles’ evolution from a group of young men who “knew how to play” in the style primarily of American R&B, played well together and would go on to write an nearly unprecedented number of hit songs (someone compares them in this regard to Mozart and Schubert), to a group of pop music pioneers, whose experiments in the art form made it impossible for them to re-create some of the effects they invented in their recording sessions. It is tuned this way, it’s tuned that way.
But I thought I’d seen every bit of old concert archive, every one of Beatlemania’s recorded screeches and wails, yet Howard and his production team have unearthed quite a bit of new stuff.
Advertisement
After the trailer release of “The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years” last June 20, the documentary finally hits select cinemas in the U.S. It will be followed by an exclusive release on Hulu available starting September 17, after the Documentary Films company ensured U.S exclusive streaming rights last May.
