From Deadheads to Beliebers, few musicians reach the level of fame that prompts a word to be coined to describe their fandom. But none can top Beatlemania – and a new official documentary chronicling it is premiering in cinemas next month.
The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years traces the band's early career, from 1962 to 1966. Featuring rare and exclusive footage, it follows the Fab Four from the Cavern Club in their hometown of Liverpool to their final concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. It takes in their European tour in 1963 and the surge in popularity thereafter in the US and a subsequent world tour that saw them perform 166 concerts in 90 cities across 15 countries in just two years.
The documentary was directed by Ron Howard, renowned for his work on films such as Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind, and produced by multiple-award-winning Nigel Sinclair of White Horse Pictures, Concord Music Group cheif executive Scott Pascucci and Oscar-winning Brian Grazer of Imagine Entertainment.
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"The way The Beatles burst onto the scene in Britain was an overwhelming social, cultural and musical phenomenon, but was even then eclipsed by that extraordinary explosion on the American scene and then the world," says Sinclair. "I was lucky enough to see the Beatles perform in Glasgow in 1964, shortly after their Ed Sullivan Show appearance."
The film has its worldwide premiere in London on 15September and a remastered album will be released to coincide with it. The Beatles: Live At The Hollywood Bowl brings together for the first time archive recordings from the band's three sold-out concerts at the Los Angeles venue in 1964 and 1965. It will be available both as a download and a CD from 9 September, followed on 18 November by a vinyl-LP version in a gatefold sleeve.
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