Remember when Keith Richards gave a somewhat belated withering verdict on ‘Sgt. Peppers…’ a summer ago?
For any memories which need refreshing: “Some people think it’s a genius album, but I think it’s a mishmash of rubbish, kind of like, ‘Oh, if you can make a load of sh*t, so can we’.”
We’ll he’s back again to give a similar verdict on the group prior to the time in which they gave up touring and focused exclusively on the studio and recording some landmark albums.
Of The Beatles as a live band, Richards has told the Radio Times: “Musically, The Beatles had a lovely sound and great songs. But the live thing? They were never quite there.”
Of course, by 1966 the Fab Four might well have agreed with him, disillusioned as they were not just with life on the road, but with how they had (not) developed as a live band since their amps were drowned out by the roar of Beatlemania from their huge 1963 breakthrough onwards.