THE BEATLES AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL

There is a lot of live Beatles material out there...but this is by far the best. The performances of the songs are BETTER than on the studio albums. Twist and Shout, Roll Over Beethoven and She's A Woman are slightly rearranged from the studio versions, and much the better for it. The true talent and raw energy of the early beatles cannot be understood without this well-recorded document of that moment in history.

Some are annoyed by the screaming, but I don't think it interferes with the music...there are only a very few places where the crowd comes close to over-powering the music, and in those places it is for good reason. The screaming is not a constant monotone wail, but is affected by and literally becomes PART OF the music. Every time I hear the guitar solo in She's A Woman end, and Paul yells She's A Woman, I always get goosebumps when the screaming momentarily swells up over the song, and I've been listening to this album for over 15 years.

Unfortunately this album was never made into a CD in the US or Great Britain, but both the 1964 and 1965 shows in their entirity were released on one CD (titled 'Beatles: Live at the Hollywood Bowl')in Japan, and can be bought online through Amazon and places like that. If you're only going to own two Beatles albums recorded before Rubber Soul, let 'Help!' be one, and let 'Live at the Hollywood Bowl' be the other.