After 40 years, you can finally hear The Beatles Live at the Hollywood Bowl
Beatlemania had hit Los Angeles. The year was 1964 and thousands of young women lined the streets desperate for a ticket to see The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl.
The Beatles: Live at The Hollywood Bowl is the only live album the band ever made. Day 6 spoke with James Clarke, a systems analyst with Abbey Road Studios, about the recording of it then, and the remastering of it now.
"1964 was pretty much the turning point in The Beatles career," he says.
The level of the screams drowned out the actual PA system inside the concert arena.- James Clarke, Abbey Road Studios
The concert
"They turn up to the Hollywood Bowl and there are 17,000 - 18,000 screaming girls," says Clarke.
Once inside the venue, the colossal sound of screams was so overbearing that concert-goers could see The Beatles playing, but couldn't hear them.
"The level of the screams drowned out the actual PA system inside the concert arena," explains Clarke.
"Capitol Records wanted to release a live album because that was quite popular in the United States. Unfortunately, they were all caught out by how to record it," says Clarke.
1964 recording
At the time, audio producers recording live concerts would mix the sound of the crowd back into the instrument tracks.
"So the Hollywood Bowl engineers had microphones set up in the actual audience," explains Clarke.
This practice of recording crowds up close would serve as the biggest challenge in recording a live Beatles album.
"They're starting up their songs … and then there's just a massive amount of screams," says Clarke.
When The Beatles sat down with record producer George Martin, and listened to what Capitol Records had produced, they found that the music they had played was almost entirely drowned out by the screaming frenzy of fans.
"[The Beatles] straight away turned around and said 'you can't hear the music'," says Clarke.
The Beatles told Capitol records not to release the album, and it wouldn't be released for another 13 years.
"In the early '70s some person had discovered the Hamburg Star Club tapes from the end of 1962 and … that was the driving force behind them releasing the album," says Clarke.
Album present day
A few years ago, Capitol Records discovered The Beatles tapes in their vaults of Hollywood Bowl concerts and sent them to Abbey Road Studios.
"When they came through to us we sat down and listened to them to see if there was anything we could do to improve them,"
"About 95% of the actual crowd was removed from the actual instrumentation to leave the instruments behind," says Clarke.
With the remastered audio, you can actually hear Ringo Starr drumming.
"It really stands out how well they rocked," says Clarke. "Paul's baseline is just electric."
Evolution of recording live
The Hollywood Bowl plays an important and long-lasting role in concert history.
"Today we take for granted that live concerts are recorded properly," says Clarke. "In essence, it was the mistakes from those early days of trying to record The Beatles that set the scene for how concerts [now] get recorded."
Next week will mark the 40th anniversary of The Beatles Live at The Hollywood Bowl.