Picture this: the year is 1969. The Beatles have gone from being four lads from Liverpool with Moptops to a worldwide phenomenon that was now on the verge of breaking up. Amid all the doom and gloom that surrounded the inevitable demise of the band, came an album that was not only the most cohesive album since Revolver, but would also be The Beatles’ best-selling album: Abbey Road.
Abbey Road was not the last album The Beatles ever released (that honour goes to Let It Be), but it was the last album that they recorded together. The album not only features some of the group’s most ambitious creative moments, it also offers a glimpse of what The Beatles had been striving for throughout the previous years – everything but the magic formula that would allow John, Paul, George and Ringo to continue working together.
Despite them going their own separate paths, the boys beckon us to Come Together right from the onset. And they continue with an eclectic mix of songs that range from the mystical Something and I Want You (She’s So Heavy) to whimsical tones of Octopus’s Garden and Polythene Pam to the happier sounds of Here Comes The Sun. The album finally ends with a crescendo and says goodbye with kiss of philosophy that not only stands the test of time, but tattoos itself onto our hearts – “And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make“.
The cover art for Abbey Road is simple, yet iconic enough to be the most famous and imitated images in the history of recorded music: the four Beatles in a row, marching through the black-and-white zebra crossing on Abbey Road. And it is imitated so often that there is now a live crossing cam at the famous spot where fans can search, submit and share their crossing shots – just don’t get run over!
You can now enjoy the sounds of the Liverpool lads when Classic Albums Live comes to The Centre on April 24 where they will recreate the album faithfully. Founder Craig Martin says that not only will the show recreate Abbey Road note for note and cut for cut, but they will dig much deeper.
“We’ve crawled inside the album, soaked in its DNA and fused it with our own,” he says. “We’ve dug into the minutiae and faithfully found a way to perform it live that doesn’t involve running a tape machine. There are string players, horn players, wind makers, drummers-a-drumming and guitarists-a-wailing. This is the album you send into space for other planets to find and listen to.”
Classic Albums Live will perform The Beatles’ Abbey Road on Thursday, April 24 @ 8PM.