Saw this documentary last night. Grew up a true Beatles fan, adored them/all their music. Still do, in fact. Played Sgt. Pepper most of the day today. And through the years I have seen just about every doco ever made about the band.
But when I went to see them at the age of 16 at Festival Hall in Melbourne, Australia in 1964 I felt utterly cheated and so very, very disappointed by the "live" experience for 2 main reasons.
(1) I expected them to sound EXACTLY like their records (yeah, I know, very naive) – and they didn't.
(2) What I could hear I thought sounded god-awful – and the reason I couldn't hear properly (despite the obviously crap sound system, etc. available at the time) was because I was surrounded by shrieking, screaming, hysterical teenage girls. (And it was clear to me most of the girls were over-doing the hysteria big time. Annoying.)
Which brings me to this latest doco. I thought maybe I would be seeing more behind the scenes interaction between the group, I thought perhaps I would be seeing more 'not seen before' type interviews, I thought I might hear more information about their respective family lives in the early years during their meteoric rise to fame 63-67. But no, none of those things really happened at all.
What was there, and in plentiful proportion to absolutely everything else, was vision after vision of shrieking, screaming, hysterical teenage girls! As you might imagine, this was less than impressive to me. And by that I mean - BORING!
I totally agree with what another reviewer said, it was more like one long Newsreel.
I definitely would not recommend this documentary and, not for the first time, let me say I am incredulous at the high IMDb rating.
But when I went to see them at the age of 16 at Festival Hall in Melbourne, Australia in 1964 I felt utterly cheated and so very, very disappointed by the "live" experience for 2 main reasons.
(1) I expected them to sound EXACTLY like their records (yeah, I know, very naive) – and they didn't.
(2) What I could hear I thought sounded god-awful – and the reason I couldn't hear properly (despite the obviously crap sound system, etc. available at the time) was because I was surrounded by shrieking, screaming, hysterical teenage girls. (And it was clear to me most of the girls were over-doing the hysteria big time. Annoying.)
Which brings me to this latest doco. I thought maybe I would be seeing more behind the scenes interaction between the group, I thought perhaps I would be seeing more 'not seen before' type interviews, I thought I might hear more information about their respective family lives in the early years during their meteoric rise to fame 63-67. But no, none of those things really happened at all.
What was there, and in plentiful proportion to absolutely everything else, was vision after vision of shrieking, screaming, hysterical teenage girls! As you might imagine, this was less than impressive to me. And by that I mean - BORING!
I totally agree with what another reviewer said, it was more like one long Newsreel.
I definitely would not recommend this documentary and, not for the first time, let me say I am incredulous at the high IMDb rating.