The Beatles – USA Live Anthology Vol 3 ( 2 CD SET ) ( MBE )

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The Beatles – USA Live Anthology Vol 3 ( 2 CD SET ) ( MBE )

The Beatles – U.S.A. Vol. 3 Live Anthology: Tour Of America 1965/1966 (MBE–010-0021/2)

Disc 1: Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, CA – August 29th, 1965: Intro., Twist & Shout, She’s A Woman, I Feel Fine, Dizzy Miss Lizzy, Ticket To Ride, Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby, Can’t Buy Me Love, Baby’s In Black, I Wanna Be Your Man, A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, I’m Down. Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, CA – August 30th, 1965: Intro., Twist & Shout, She’s A Woman, I Feel Fine, Dizzy Miss Lizzy, Ticket To Ride, Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby, Can’t Buy Me Love, Baby’s In Black, I Wanna Be Your Man, A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, I’m Down. Metropolitan Stadium, Bloomington, MN – August 21st, 1965: She’s A Woman, I Feel Fine.

Disc 2: Metropolitan Stadium, Bloomington, MN – August 21st, 1965: Dizzy Miss Lizzy, Ticket To Ride, Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby, Can’t Buy Me Love, Baby’s In Black, I Wanna Be Your Man, A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, I’m Down. Interviews at station, interviews at stadium (part 1), interviews at stadium (part 2), interviews at stadium (part 3), opening ceremony/ We love you Beatles, interviews during concert, after the concert interviews recorded at Shea Stadium, New York August 23rd, 1966. Candlestick Park, San Francisco, CA – August 29th, 1966: Rock And Roll Music, She’s A Woman, If I Needed Someone, Day Tripper, Baby’s In Black, I Feel Fine, Yesterday, I Wanna Be Your Man, Nowhere Man, Paperback Writer, Long Tall Sally

The Beatles U.S.A. Live Anthology Vol. 3, the final of the three volumes, picks up where volume two left off by documenting three more 1965 shows, the only and only near complete 1966 tape in circulation, and a bunch of interviews surrounding their August 23rd, 1966 concert in Shea Stadium in New York. The first disc documents the two Hollywood Bowl soundboards from 1965 that have been released before in excellent quality.

The August 29th soundboard recording, which is first on this release, is arguable the best sounding soundboard in the entire collection. The only flaw is that only John’s microphone was working on the first couple of numbers, and Paul had some problems with his amp. Thus the harmonies are lost and Lennon’s sometimes out of tune singing dominates the recording on “Twist & Shout” and Paul’s lead vocals on “She’s A Woman” are ruined.

The Minneapolis is a relatively new find, surfacing several years ago and being released several times, most recently with the Atlanta soundboard by Misterclaudel. It is a poor audience recording, even worse than the Seattle tape, and is barely audible. MBE really couldn’t rescue this tape and its sound quality is identical to previous releases. This is followed on disc two by several interviews done by Ed Sullivan and others about The Beatles more obscure Shea Stadium concert in 1966. A five song fragment of the show has circulated but not the entire concert. The interviews record people complaining about the short duration of the concert and defenses of John Lennon’s “we’re more popular than Jesus” statement.

The final portion of this release is the Tony Barrow audience source for The Beatles’ final concert in San Francisco, August 29th, 1966. This is a very good and clear recording running out at the beginning of “Long Tall Sally”. The performance is very good and is a rare opportunity to hear “Yesterday”, “If I Needed Someone” and “Nowhere Man” in a live setting in the US. It’s puzzling why this is the only near complete tape from their last US tour. One wonders if people have tapes but are sitting on them thinking they’re worth a fortune?

MBE chose not to include the various newsreel fragments that are available like the Cleveland August 14th, 1966 tape with a fragment of “Long Tall Sally” with DJ voice over, the August 18th, 1966 Suffolk Down, Boston fragment of “Long Tall Sally” with DJ voice over (with said disc jockey speaking to a fan before he runs on stage) both of which appears on Live Addendum Vol. Two on Secret Traxx. Two more fragments appeared on Live In Minneapolis 1965 (Nighthawk NH-02020): “I Wanna Be Your Man” and “Paperback Writer” from the afternoon show in Memphis, August 19th, 1966, and a five song fragment from Shea Stadium, August 23rd, 1966, containing “She’s A Woman”, “If I Needed Someone”, “I Feel Fine”, “Yesterday”, “Paperback Writer”.

Hopefully more complete tapes will surface. There is hope with the auction of the complete “cherry bomb” show from Memphis on August 19th. Although the three volumes aren’t as complete as one would hope this is a very commendable effort by MBE and well worth the effort. I like the idea of having all of these documents available in one place and with proper documentation. Hopefully the label can produce further volumes as more tapes will (hopefully) start circulating.