The Beatles Band • Page 28

Finished it last night, what an incredible thing to exist.

Rooftop don’t let me down >

 

nah man the first takes, even with paul’s annoying backing vocals, were the best. george letting the wah in and john really going for it with the vocals. great stuff, surprised none of those takes ended up on the expanded edition, i guess probably due to it not actually being on let it be

 

Lots of thoughts. Probably finishing part 3 during work today. You guys have covered the interpersonal vibes pretty well. Only thing I'd add there was how great the scene where everyone was talking about how much they love Ringo was. What a sweetheart. And that Yoko, while I'm sure there was maybe a bit more tension there than they show or express in this, was really not a very disruptive figure. They mention she talked for John instead of letting him talk in their first meeting with George after he left but the legend of these sessions portrays her as essentially ruining them and clearly that's not true. She seems to be more a symptom of John's drift from them than a cause. I get the vibe that was something the doc was trying to get across specifically. And God Bless Heather Eastman and her Yoko impression what a cutie.

The main musical thoughts this brings out for me are 1. what if Phil Spector didn't ruin Let It Be and 2. god damn they just sound so good. That rooftop concert is obviously a peak for them but it just makes me think how much of a shame it was that we never really got this live (at least live-in-studio) more raw Beatles as much as we could've. I'd listen to a tours worth of bootlegs with that rooftop sound. That obviously couldn't happen for any number of reasons but it really is a shame we never got any live Beatles that sounded like this outside of the one.

 

I’ll seek them out, I don’t think I have outside of the clips in the doc. But yea I could see liking those ones a lot. For me though the roof ones have such a great energy that really serves the song well. Glyn Johns version sounds like a swamp and single one (if that’s different, been a minute since I’ve heard it) felt slow to me too.

In general, most of the songs from these sessions sound better the faster and heavier they play them to me so it’s definitely that preference shining through for me.

 

Dylan probably would've joined if they had asked him is the funniest part. He wanted to join the Dead both around this time (maybe a few years later) and also when they toured together in the 80s. He was dead serious about it lmao

 

lmaooooo

 

Not gonna lie, I kinda wonder how that would’ve turned out

 

Paul is such a control freak he'd have punched Bob in the face haha and I wouldn't blame either one

 

Bob rarely gushes over his contemporaries in the way he gushes about Paul

 

i do think bob would have been more withering about paul’s nanny songs but, yeah, he loves paul.

the one that always gets me is clapton. in some alternate universe where george is in cream and clapton fills george’s role … damn

 

I didn't know who Magic Alex was until this week but just stumbled into reading about him and wow guys a real asshole huh

 

I really like the documentary, and it’s definitely designed for more hardcore fans I feel, but does anyone else feel like it’s a bit *too* long? I know they had way more footage and cut it down to what was released, but 2.5-3 hour chunks of episodes is…a lot to sit through and watch and probably isn’t enticing for newer or casual fans to watch.

 

Oh I was talking about Bob being in Grateful Dead.

 

The scene in part two where Paul reads the Michael Housego article while John sings is so weirdly dissonant and tense.

 

I think they should have made it 6 or 8 episodes instead of 3 and broken it up into more digestable pieces. I can't really get my parents or friends to watch it because of the 3 hour episode length.

 

I have no problem w the length, could've been longer lol

My main issue with the series as a whole is the massive DNR Jackson and co. applied to the original 16mm footage making certain shots look way too artificially smoothed to the point that the lads (especially ringo) look like dolls

That along with the reframing of footage to a different aspect ratio is super disappointing

No coincidence that by far the best filmmaking in the whole thing is the rooftop performance where (aside from the great use of splitscreen) they thankfully kept footage in its original aspect ratio and used way less distracting DNR

 

So I know what DNR is but I’m admittedly uneducated about it. Like explain to me like I’m five about how DNR works and why it’s bad.

 

Digital Noise Reduction is used when encoding film grain (usually generations old reels) to restore it and remove unnecessary film grain but when applied to much it can remove details

 

some examples:

https://i.ibb.co/x6WbM6w/3-F7-AD013-BC0-A-4538-B0-A3-D49291-E36-C4-D.jpg


https://i.ibb.co/GQvVdwk/2TibjdT.jpg

 

Second link didn’t load but wow, John looked like plastic.

 

I didn’t notice it before but that’s disappointing, especially after the work PJ lead on They Shall Not Grow Old.

 

I enjoyed this because the material was just so compelling and fascinating, but, for me, I think the digital noise reduction mirrors the length in that there was just too much of both.

It's a shame, because I really thought They Shall Not Grow Old was an absolute masterpiece, and I was kinda hoping it meant that Peter Jackson had found his groove again. This played to me like one of Peter Jackson's extended cuts where the studio told him it could be as long as he possibly wanted with absolutely no time constraints whatsoever, but where this other hypothetical and much shorter original cut is the far superior movie.

 

Yeah honestly for me the whole documentary (at least parts 1 and 2 which I’ve completed, and I presume part 3 will be as well) are varying degrees of “holy shit” and “this is cool to see” mixed in with…a bit of IMHO unnecessary filler that maybe should not have made the final cut. I like the concept of really showing the whole recording sessions of the Let It Be album, and I think it’s a very unique glimpse into what went on during these sessions, but…yeah. I agree a shorter film probably would have been the better move.