Spank 109

21 Tracks - Total Time: 53:25

Shea!
August 15, 1965

1. Introduction (2:07)

2. Twist And Shout (1:24)

3. I Feel Fine (2:27)

4. Dizzy Miss Lizzy (3:14)

5. Ticket To Ride (2:32)

6. Can't Buy Me Love (2:39)

7. Baby's In Black (2:38)

8. A Hard Day's Night (with commentary from John / Paul / & Brian) (3:12)

9. Help! (2:35)

10. I'm Down (3:12)

Candlestick Park
August 29, 1966

11. Rock And Roll Music (1:38)

12. She's A Woman (2:52)

13. If I Needed Someone (2:53)

14. Day Tripper (3:23)

15. Baby's In Black (2:28)

16. I Feel Fine (2:36)

17. Yesterday (2:41)

18. I Wanna Be Your Man (2:37)

19. Nowhere Man (2:37)

20. Paperback Writer (2:41)

21. Long Tall Sally (Inc.) (0:59)

Liner Notes:

CTS Studios, Kensington Gardens Square, London - Jan 5, 1966

     Just as it would be naive to believe that the sound on live concert rock music albums is ever truly live and undoctored, so the same is true for live concert films (and, these days, videos). Stage performances can sound not merely alright but distinctly amazing on the night, amid the heady atmosphere of an exited auditorium of stadium, but a close listen to the tapes some weeks or months later in a cold recording studio or cutting room can prove decidedly disappointing.
     In the case of The Beatles' momentous 15 August 1965 Shea Stadium concert, the audio tapes specifically revealed not only musical flaws on the Beatles' part but also technical imperfections caused by the sheer size of the venue, the high decibel screaming and the less than state-of-the-art mobile recording equipment around in 1965. To have screened unaltered such a high-profile film on peak-time television would have done the group a disservice.
     So it was that, amid some secrecy, The Beatles came to CTS Studios in central London this day, to "sweeten" the soundtrack, by whatever means necessary, of their in-production television film The Beatles At Shea Stadium.
     The session began with Paul only, overdubbing new bass tracks onto "Dizzy Miss Lizzy", "Can't Buy Me Love", "Baby's In Black", and "I'm Down". Onto this latter song John also overdubbed a new organ track. More drastic repair work was then effected by the group as a whole, with entirely new recordings completed for two songs: "I Feel Fine" (done at George Martin's specific request) and "Help!".
     The Beatles strove to re-create a live concert sound with these recordings rather than their more typical EMI studio feel, and they also had to match carefully their singing and playing with the on-screen images, hence the use of CTS, the premier audio-to-film dubbing studio in London. (CTS is an abbreviation for Cine Tele Sound.)
     To fix "Act Naturally" the Beatles did nothing: the film post-production team merely replaced the Shea recording with the Beatles' disc version (recorded 17 June 1965), syncing it to the pictures by means of audience cut-aways and even, in places, cuts in the music (Intentionnaly or otherwise, one moment - where Ringo's vocal is evident but his mouth is closed - was left in the film uncorrected).
     Documentation also suggests that John wished to record a new version of "Ticket To Ride", and that it was done during this CTS session but close study of the film indicates that the original Shea version was used (although perhaps a little instrumental overdubbing was effected).
     Additionnally, George Martin desired a new recording of "Twist And Shout", but there wasn't time for that. Instead, the post-production team used the unreleased 30 Aug 1965 Hollywood Bowl concert recording to bolster the sound, causing - in one place - John's live vocal to be double-tracked. In fact, the Bowl recording was used extensively during the film's post-production processes for recordings of the screaming audience, especially on the two all new London recordings.
     No doctoring appears to have been done to either "She's A Woman" or "Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby", suggesting that, by this time, they had already been excluded from the film. They were, however, included in an early print which Epstein received from Sullivan Productions around 5 November 1965, which ran to 54 minutes. By January, as it would be for the transmission, the film's duration had been cut to just under 48 minutes.

By Mark Lewisohn

(Used without permission)