What did The Beatles play at their last official live show?
29 August 2025, 08:00
The Fab Four played their last ever show on 29th August 1966. Here's how The Beatles bowed out of touring for good.
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The Beatles officially stopped touring in August 1966, just after the release of their ground-breaking album Revolver.
The quartet had worked tirelessly since Beatlemania broke in the summer of 1963 - they'd travelled the world, released seven albums, had 11 UK No 1 hit singles and made two feature films. They were exhausted and in real danger of burnout.
At the end of June 1966, the group travelled to Japan for five shows at Tokyo's Budokan. However, this was a respected venue that usually played host to martial arts events and The Beatles attracted negative publicity and even threats for being the first Western rock band to perform there.
The band then travelled on to the Philippines, for two shows in Manila, but The Beatles inadvertenty snubbed the First Lady Imelda Marcos when they didn't respond to an invitation to attend a reception held in their honour. The Fab Four were on the receiving end of violence as they made their way to the airport to leave the country.
But that wasn't the end of it. In March of 1966, Evening Standard journalist Maureen Cleave ran a series of profiles of the Fab Four, including one called "How does a Beatle live? John Lennon lives like this". The interview quoted Lennon as saying ""Christianity will go," he said. "It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now."
The comments were reproduced in a provocative American magazine called Datebook and attracted widespread condemnation from religious groups. Protests against The Beatles were seen across the US, including the "Bible Belt" in the South, with some areas encouraging kids to burn their albums and other merchandise.
Lennon was required to make an official apology, and the subsequent 18-date North American tour went ahead as scheduled, but The Beatles found playing the shows stressful as the threat of someone in the audience taking a "pot shot" at one of the musicians was always present.
On top of all this, the media were claiming that the popularity of The Beatles was on the slide. Attendance at the shows was reportedly down on the huge crowds that had come out to see the Fab Four previous year, with a return to New York's Shea Stadium on 23rd August failing to sell out.
For The Beatles themselves, touring was now not only a chore, it was actively dangerous. The band's sub-30 minute sets were full of old material and the musicians couldn’t be heard over the screaming fans anyway.
So, on a cold and foggy Monday night, 29th August 1966, The Beatles performed what they considered to be their last ever live show at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, home of the city's baseball team, the Giants.
Even though the show wasn’t announced as their final date, it was the end of the era. Only 25,000 tickets of over 42,000 were sold for this historic show and support acts came in the shape of The Remains, Bobby Hebb, The Cyrkle and The Ronettes.
So how did The Beatles bring the curtain down on their brilliant touring career? Here's what they played. It's noticeable that the most recent song was Paperback Writer, release as a single in May of that year, but there was nothing from their brand new album Revolver.
The Beatles - Candlestick Park, San Francisco 29th August 1966 setlist
- Rock And Roll Music (from the album Beatles For Sale, 1964)
- She's A Woman (b-side, 1964)
- If I Needed Someone (album track, 1965)
- Day Tripper (single, 1965)
- Baby's In Black (album track, 1964)
- I Feel Fine (single, 1964)
- Yesterday (album track, 1965)
- I Wanna Be Your Man (album track, 1963)
- Nowhere Man (album track, 1965)
- Paperback Writer (single, 1966)
- Long Tally Sally (EP track, 1964)
John and Paul took cameras on stage during the show to document the occasion, with the four taking a "selfie" of themselves. Before introducing Paperback Writer, McCartney announced - to himself, if nobody else - "We’d like to carry on, I think. We’re not really sure yet. I’d like to carry on, certainly. Definitely."
The final song The Beatles played at an official gig was a cover of Little Richard's Long Tall Sally, The band's press officer Tony Barrow was making a cassette recording of the show, but he didn't bother to turn the tape over to complete the recording, meaning the only audio of the concert ends midway through that last tune. According to reports, the show ended with John Lennon beginning to play the introspective song In My Life, before stopping abruptly.
The Beatles "Last Live Show" Candlestick Park 8/29/66 HD-720p
On the flight home, George was heard to say: "That's it, I'm not a Beatle any more." The rest of 1966 was now clear of Beatle activity. Lennon took an acting part in Richard Lester's film How I Won The War, which was shot in Spain that autumn. McCartney took a commission to work on a soundtrack for the British movie The Family Way. Harrison went to India to learn the sitar and absorb the culture. Starr enjoyed the family life out in Surrey.
People in general thought The Beatles had split up for good.
What the public didn’t know was that The Beatles had chosen to concentrate on their recording career. Their next album was to be an adventurous sonic adventure called Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Candlestick Park wasn't to be the end of The Beatles.
