My review of "The Beatles touring years" documentary, by Ron Howard

So I watched the new Ron Howard documentary about the Beatles' rise to fame and touring years.




Being a bit of a Beatles fan I have to say that I really enjoyed it. It gives an insight into the madness of Beatlemania and how the Fab Four got gradually fed up with it as they got older and wanted expand to their creativity. Leading to their transformation from teenage heartthrobs to psychedelic innovators with 'Sgt Peppers', and beyond.
And how the hysteria was getting bigger than what they could handle, and their disillusionment.
It also chronicles some tense moments, like the whole 'we are bigger than Jesus' controversy in America (leading to mass burnings of their records by religious fans) and their troubles in the South due to their groundbreaking choice to play to a desegregated audience (which I actually didn't know much about before), which got the KKK all riled up.

There's some footage that most Beatles fan will have already seen, but it's all been restored to high quality, giving it a fresh new look. Plus a lot of never before seen video, including fans recordings of their live shows.
The best part is the new audio mix of the live shows, in it you can actually hear the singing and the instruments as in the old videos the screaming of the fans just was unbearable. And that's one of the reasons they decided to stop playing live, as they couldn't even hear themselves play!
There's news snippets of the time, interviews with some famous faces who attended their shows, and clips of the Beatles being funny and silly as well as in their more serious and disillusioned.

I'm sure some things were left out to make it more 'family friendly', but it was pretty satisfying nonetheless. (It is a Ron Howard film after all)
It gives a new perspective on their early years, and helps to understand their total shift in direction of their later albums.
Great if you like the Beatles, but also interesting for the look into 60's culture and history.

I just saw this weekend, that they had some footage, I think from Shea stadium? That some lady had and had never looked at. She recorded it herself, then apparently forgot about it.

Sounds like it would be cool to see, for Beatles fans.

a reply to: chiefsmom

Yes! Quite a lot of fan footage, they also showed a discovered clip that showed a really young Sigourney Weaver rocking out in the audience!