The Beatles at Johanneshov

The Beatles at Johanneshov

A recording from one of The Beatles’ performances at Johanneshovs Isstadion, Stockholm, Sweden suddenly materialised out of nowhere the other day, and started circulating among collectors. The Beatles played four concerts at the venue, two on July 28th, 1964 and two the day after. The recording could be from any of these concerts. The concert was professionally recorded in stereo, however, over the years, one channel of the stereo image has been wiped. The result is that you can hear Paul McCartney’s vocal microphone loud and clear, but not John Lennon’s. Of course, when George Harrison sings into McCartney’s microphone you can hear him, but not when he is using John’s. The bass, drums and George’s guitar are heard, but not so much Lennon’s rhythm guitar. You can hear John’s voice being picked up some times by Paul’s microphone, but distant. Still, it’s an entertaining recording, and the missing side of the stereo image lets you focus in on some backup singing.

From this recording, “All My Loving” has previously been aired on Swedish Radio by Staffan Olander in 2012, like we told you about at the time.

Songs heard:

I Saw Her Standing There (the beginning is missing)

You Can’t Do That (Paul thanks the audience in Swedish, John is audible when he’s speaking)

She Loves You (Paul tries to sing it with a Swedish accent occasionally)

All My Loving

Roll Over Beethoven (George is using Paul’s microphone, so we can hear him sing)

Can’t Buy Me Love

I Wanna Be Your Man (Ringo’s vocals almost inaudible, but Paul and John share Paul’s microphone and are strongly present)

And the recording comes to a halt. You can listen to the recording in the player below.

It’s strange that this recording should appear at its 50th anniversary. Perhaps something to do with the EU copyright legislation?

Poster for the concerts at Johanneshov

12 Responses

  1. NP says:

    Excellent find. It's John singing with Paul on I Wanna Be Your man, George never sang on that one.

  2. wogew says:

    Thank, NP. Duly noted and blog post updated to reflect this.

  3. Tony says:

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but this would have been the only Beatles concert recorded in stereo other than the Hollywood Bowl shows. If so, what a disaster that the other track has been lost!!

  4. pt1982 says:

    genial, pero no carga bien. aqui esta la direccion del vinculo:

    wogew.podomatic.com/entry/2014-08-01T01_43_37-07_00

  5. Unknown says:

    Beatles Live From The Sam Houston Coliseum (available on bootleg) was certainly recorded off the sound board – I'd always thought it was stereo, but wouldn't stake my life on it. Either way – shame to have lost one side of this recording (glass half empty!!)

  6. Terence Daniel Collier says:

    any idea what this is about?

    amazon.co.uk/Beatles-Uncut-Long-Winding-Road/dp/B00KH6ICAM/ref=pd_sim_d_h__6?ie=UTF8&refRID=03SDDN101ZPTM763TY41

  7. wogew says:

    Probably the same as this (there are four volumes) plus a book.

  8. Terence Daniel Collier says:

    oh ok thanks – doesnt look worth the cash – cheers

  9. db says:

    Good weren't they?

  10. Robertswede says:

    Many thanks for this, Roger! But how can one of the stereo channel be wiped? My theory is that this was professionally recorded via the stage PA, most likely by the guy responsible for the sound there, on an 2 track open reel 1/4" tape recorder (runs in one direction only, recording two tracks on the full width of the tape). When you play this tape back on a regular 4 track open reel (two stereo channels in both directions, you record and play back on both sides of the reel), you can only hear one of the channels. If the master tape still exists we can get both channels back (I still have one of those old open reel master machines). Also, I believe this was the evening concert on July 29th, as it ends with I Wanna Be Your Man. Fans stormed the stage then and The Beatles were asked to stop the show, which they did and returned to their hotel.
    All the best from Robert Gille (Beatles historian, Sweden)

  11. Unknown says:

    Hi Robert. I own an old 1960s 2 track 1/4" – which unfortunately does have the ability to record on the 2nd track independently of the 1st. I know because I've done it myself, and lost one half of a couple of recordings I made. 🙁

  12. Unknown says:

    thebeatles-song.blogspot.com/

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