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(c) Ian Hammond 1999
All rights reserved

Lennon's last Beatle Bow
I never saw the Beatles live: there wasn't much to see in 1964 apart
from a lot of screaming. I did see the Rolling Stones on both tours to
Australia. Along with Roy Orbison. Great stuff.

A mate of mine was living in San Francisco around 1975. I told him,
the next time there's a Van Morrison concert, buy me a ticket,
somehow I get there in time. So, about six months later he called me
in Munich and said he had seats, for the following Saturday. By sheer
coincidence I had the plane tickets in my pocket. The big appointments
always work out.

So, we go to this Bill Graham concert, suitably altered for the
evening. Some Really Huge Band comes out first and plays Incredibly
Heavy Funk. When they finish, Van's people start wandering out on
stage. The drummer/percussionist looked about fourteen years old. The
backup singers looked like they'd break in the wind. This fey little
group of fragile beings slowly assembled, and I asked myself how they
could possibly follow-up the previous army of funk. Of course they did
it with the first half-dozen chords -- measurement in music is about
the dimensions of the idea, not the size of the saxophone.

Van the Man does a good concert, whether he's in a bad mood, or a
worse mood. He doesn't smile much. In fact, he was the iron gestalt of
a man with a strapped-on acoustic guitar all night. It was a great
show, but something undefinable was missing. We arrived at the last
number, the band stopped, Van uttered his signature line, Too late to
stop now, and fell over backwards. 

Nothing was missing any more.

At heart, for all his jazz, his folk, his poetry and his earnest
Blarney, Van Morrison is still a rocker. Sacrifice is an important
part of that culture. Have you ever seen a Little Richard concert?
Little Richard pumps himself up to a high point, and then just throws
himself into the crowd. Total sacrifice. Something from the Gospel
tradition? Van had simply reduced the action to its minimal form. You
fall over backwards.

So what's this got to do with the Beatles? Easy? What was their
sacrificial offering?

They knew all about Little Richard's trauma. They worked with him in
Hamburg when they used to go even wilder on stage in Hamburg. Can't
you just picture total Lennon dementia: portrait of a rock star,
framed in a toilet seat.

But the later Beatles weren't like that, were they Brian? The clever
Beatles, as Lennon called them. Leather and mach Schau was gone.
Tidied up in Brian's Pierre Cardin suits. But Brian (I understand),
who had an acting background, also gave them their new sacrificial
symbol: that deep Beatle Bow, full forward from the waist, executed
slowly and held for five seconds. A bit awkward for the drummer.
Totally iconic for the band. A moment of silent meditation in the
midst of pandemonium.

In fact, the Beatles turned their collective backs on all forms of
expression, beyond Ringo's shaking head and the occasional rush to the
mike for some harmony. The video of Day Tripper is instructive:
despite the orgasmic climax of the solo break (not much different in
design to A Day In The Life by the way), the Beatles remain
implacable. Unflappable. Perfect British Gentlemen.

Lennon barely even opens his mouth. Think of the orifices of Mick
Jagger, Carly Simon or that incredible ear-to-ear north and south of
the lead singer of Aerosmith. Now think of Lennon's minuscule
aperture: so small that it became a defining facial feature in
caricatures (even his own). 

In 1973 Lennon planned a live concert in Madison Square Garden.
Roberta Flack (softly with his song) and Stevie Wonder (It's very
superstitious) were just two of the other guests.

Lennon rehearsed his Elephants Memory Band daily for two weeks, adding
his own bass player (Klaus Voorman) and doubling with his own drummer
(Jim Keltner). The set was hugely ambitious for a live show including
such toe-tappers as Mother and Cold Turkey.

Lennon punctuated the performances with apologies: Good evening, and
welcome to the rehearsal. Whaddya know, I almost remembered all the
words. In Cold Turkey he reminded me of Buddy Holly, with his
glasses nearly falling off as his body convulsed through the outro. 

Eventually Lennon said, something like, We'll go back in the past
just once... something about a flattop -- you probably know the words
better than me. The crowd, of course, went Beatlemania ballistic as
the band did his raunchier version of Come Together (this is the
version Jackson covered in his movie Moonwalker).

By the time Come Together finally collapsed under its own weight,
audience and band were in total disarray. Utterly disoriented. What
did Lennon do? In the midst of the anarchy, and in complete solitude,
he executed a slow, low, solo Beatle Bow.

ian hammond
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"love is surrender, you've gotta let it go"
"no longer riding on the merry go round; i just had to let it go"