How the Mop Tops Made the Modern World

A new film documenting the madness of the Beatlemania years shows the beginning of a cultural shift we’re still experiencing today.

- Dan Stubbs

RECEIVED WISDOM HAS IT that the Beatles got cool right about the time they started smoking pot, ditched the suits and got busy with the facial hair. the mop top years, with their wobbly heads and songs about holding hands, are presumed naff by comparison. a new film, Eight Days A Week, directed by Ron howard (Apollo 13, The Da Vinci Code, Jay Z documentary Made In America), might change a few minds. it charts the lives of John, Paul, George and Ringo from their early days touring cinemas and concert halls in the UK to their final show at san Francisco’s candlestick Park on august 29, 1966 – a period in which you could reasonably argue they changed the world for ever.

Inventing the stadium gig

Next time you squint at ant-sized Rihanna from your cheap seats at the back, blame the Beatles – they were the first pop band to play in sports stadiums. it was a case of necessity being the mother of invention – there weren’t venues big enough to accommodate the volume of fans – and they weren’t an edifying experience. the band could barely hear themselves over the screaming; the fans heard the band through tinny tannoys. many of the stadium scenes in the film are frightening, with fans crammed onto benches, minimal security and the Beatles arriving on the pitch by car, like a disaster waiting to happen. howard, who interviewed Paul mccartney and Ringo starr for the film, agrees the shows weren’t the Beatles at their best. “a couple of years after the Beatles quit touring, the stones and the who got good at playing stadiums. But the Beatles didn’t hang around long enough to conquer it. and they don’t really like to talk about it.”

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