On January 30, 1969, the Beatles went to the rooftop of Apple headquarters for their first live performance in more than two years. The impromptu show continued for 42 minutes until the band was shut down by the police.
The Rooftop Performance
The rooftop concert was part of The Beatles’ work on a project that was entitled Get Back at the time. The album would ultimately be entitled Let It Be, as would the film that included 21 minutes of the performance.
The performance was in some ways a last gasp of a group that was coming apart. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr were trying to get back to their roots with some help from keyboardist Billy Preston.
Of course, the performance did not save the band. But it gave the world one more glimpse at the genius that was The Beatles. And they rocked.
On the roof that day, they performed several songs: “Get Back,” “Don’t Let Me Down,” “I’ve Got a Feeling,” “One After 909,” and “Dig a Pony.” Currently, the full performance is not available for embedding, but below is the Beatles performing “Don’t Let Me Down” on the roof.
Release of Let It Be
The Beatles released the album from the sessions, Let It Be, in May 1970. The release came soon after the band had broken up.
Let It Be was the final studio album released by The Beatles. But it was not the last album they recorded.
They recorded their album Abbey Road after Let It Be. Yet, Abbey Road was released in September (U.K.) and October (U.S.) 1969, several months before the release of Let It Be.
For more on the rooftop concert, check out Rolling Stone’s 15 Things You Didn’t Know about the performance.
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, author Tim Riley writes that side two of Abbey Road, which consists largely of the above song suite, “revives different stages of their career for a remarkable nostalgic resonance and comprises an ingenious manipulation of rock ‘n’ roll textures.” From inside the studio, though, John Lennon felt that the recording of Abbey Road was “