The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years
Director: Ron Howard
Stars: Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon
Duration: 137 mins
Class: PG
KRS Releasing Ltd.

The tagline to Ron Howard’s documentary The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years reads “The band you know. The story you don’t.”

I would, however, hazard a guess that there is not much contained therein that the most diehard of Beatles’ fans don’t know (except maybe that a teen Sigourney Weaver was at their 1964 Hollywood Bowl concert, with existing footage to prove it); but little does it matter. For while the diehards would undoubtedly quite happily watch anything that features the Fab Four in performance, if nothing else, the documentary reminds us that the Beatles created music that was, and remains, absolutely phenomenal.

Howard admits that one of the reasons why he embarked on this project was to give a new generation of people the opportunity to get an up close and personal glimpse of The Beatles as, between 1962 and 1966, they performed in 90 cities in 15 countries; fanning the flames of Beatlemania; and through his excellently-rendered project, he offers those who did not grow up with the band a chance to experience them at their greatest.

Sifting through hours upon hours of footage, some new material that has since come to light, and clearly meticulous research, Howard has constructed a timeline of those significant four years in the band’s history.

Their star had already risen inexorably in Europe, on the backs of their initial appearances in small clubs around Liverpool. There was also a series of concerts in Hamburg, when they travelled across the pond to the US to appear on the famous Ed Sullivan Show.

Watched by over 73 million people that fateful evening, it was the perfect launch pad for the band into the American consciousness and beyond. They went on to become a global pop culture phenomenon, as fans worldwide discovered their unparalleled charisma, peerless singing and song-writing talent and vibrant live performances. On stage, these four remarkable musicians connected quasi-magically with each and every member of the vast audiences.

With footage of the band as they travelled in North America, the Far East and Australia, we get intimate looks at the bands as they move from airport to car to hotel room to concert venue, with TV and radio appearances in between. They stop every so often to make new records, and we see them evolve as this extraordinary, exhilarating and exhausting schedule unfolds.

There is not much contained therein that the most diehard of Beatles’ fans don’t know

We are reminded that the length and breadth of the tour was pretty much unheard of in those days. And, thanks to the meticulous collation of remarkable bits of footage, we learn fascinating details about the band’s musical influences, their song-writing methods and their forays into filmmaking.

More pertinently, we also learn about their state of mind as their popularity continues to grow and grow and they lean more and more on one another in the process. One appealing titbit is the fact that any decision taken had to be agreed upon by them all.

Equally charming is their refusal to take themselves too seriously – these were, after all, a bunch of young men in their very early 20s at the time. Yet, at the same time, they acknowledged the extent of their fame and the responsibility that came with it, on one memorable occasion refusing to perform at segregated venues in the American South. This was an admirable stand considering the heightened tensions of the civil rights movement at the time.

We also get a bit of context to John Lennon’s infamous claim that the Beatles had become more popular than Jesus Christ.

It is the first feature-length documentary authorised by the band since 1970, and it also features numerous interventions by the band’s surviving members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Various other personalities from the music, acting and producing industries and academia, offer perceptive and oftentimes poignant observations of their experience of Beatlemania.

Howard has created a heady, and highly entertaining piece, illustrating the whole with amusing – and oftentimes worrying – scenes of the screaming fans, the fainting fits, the huge and hysterical crowds, the sizes of which were never seen before throwing various police forces in a tizzy.

The documentary captures the palpable excitement all this brought on and, ultimately, the toll it takes on them individually and as a band leading to their decision to stop touring at the height of their fame… leaving them free to continue to record extraordinary material for the next few years, until they called it a day in 1970.

All this unfolds – naturally –  accompanied by a soundtrack of some of their extraordinary hits, music that has withstood the test of time and the onslaught of myriad other pop and rock bands in the six decades since.

And, as a final reminder, the documentary is followed by 30 minutes of rare footage from the Beatles’ historic 1965 Shea Stadium concert in New York. If this doesn’t have you rushing home to listen to their music over and over again, nothing will.