I liked the idea of them doing a show at an undisclosed locale in the Tunisian desert. They would announce the show and then people would have to find the concert. Epic brilliance in spite of the tremendous risk. Just imagine traveling the desert with your guide and then hearing Revolution kick it off in the distance, "That way! We found it! Hurry!"
Unrealistic, I know. But VERY cool.
Another idea that I don't think has been mentioned here was to book a show under an assumed name at a venue in Hamburg, being billed as an up-and-comer or some such thing. When the bar crowd sees the band come out they lose their minds - because it's the Beatles.
Either of these ideas would make a great concert film by the Maysles Pennebaker, or Lindsay-Hogg (as OTL).
Of course, knowing the Beatles, if any scenario had become likely it would have been either the Colosseum - which the Church would most likely forbid - or playing the QEII while floating on the Thames.
My favored choice would of course be the Colosseum. Perhaps the band agrees to partially fund some sort of renovation of the site, and use the ticket sales and proceeds from live album sales to donate to a charitable fund that the Church would approve of - Salvation Army perhaps?
The following is The Admiral Hook's TL in a post:
The easiest way for this to occur in 1968 is to have the group listen to George Martin and make the White Album a single rather than double LP album.
EDIT: The POD here can be a compromise on the Hey Jude/Revolution single. Lennon records a hybrid of OTL's Revolution and Revolution 1 with some brief Revolution 9 type stuff thrown in during the intro, the solo, and the play-out. Lennon also keeps the "Out... In" part in but there's another "out..." still audible before the chorus. The result is both the most interesting and the most accessibly, commercially bizarre version of the song possible and all the Beatles agree that they like it enough to release it with Hey Jude as a double A side.
Now, with 14 of the best White Album tracks released with care (including an extended version of the alt Revolution), less stress in the studio, no interpersonal conflict, and new tracks prepared for their next studio album (some of the less fleshed out White Album stuff but in TTL much better fleshed out, plus OTL's newer Yellow Submarine tracks perhaps?) not to mention some earlier favorites, the band plays the Colosseum for a film by Michael Lindsay-Hogg called Revolution perhaps. Special guests include Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, et al.
The film does well, and even better satisfies the contract with United Artists. The live album nearly outsells the White Album.
After a brief vacation, the group returns to the studio excited to record an LP of the rejected White Album songs and the newer songs that in OTL became much of Let It Be.
Now, here let's take them down a peg. The White Album was a commercial and critical success TTL, surpassing even the successes of Sgt. Pepper. Not to mention they followed it by actually playing live again and playing extremely well at that. The live album, the film, and the Beatles careers and relationships in general are all far surpassing OTL.
So when they get into the studio for their next album in early 1969 (right around the film's release) they're still working with George Martin and Geoff Emerick (and bring in Glyn Johns to co-produce and co-engineer although his role is clearly defined TTL as subservient and assistant to Martin and Emerick), but are no longer willing to restrain themselves.
The followup to the single LP known as the White Album, will be the ill conceived double album Get Back.
The worst songs from OTL's White Album are the best songs on this record. The rest is essentially OTL's Let It Be; like a jam session marking both the group's return to hard rock, and the band's first truly explosive interpersonal conflicts. Even worse than OTL. Martin, Emerick, and Johns all three quit and the Beatles send it off to be mixed by Spector during his darkest and least focused period to date.
The album is released in the early summer of '69 and is of course successful, but it is less successful than previous releases and is released to critically mixed reviews.
Seeing that in 1969 their strength seemed to be performing live and not recording they decide to tour once more, film the entire drama (perhaps for a television mini-series) and hope for the best when they return to the studio for a follow-up (and hopefully a come back).
The tour opens secretly in a dive bar in Hamburg, Germany and the audience is thrilled. The band then goes to headline Woodstock (which is, obviously, HUGE). They close the festival out either at an enormous free festival show in the North African desert or in the Colosseum in Rome once more. Maybe even on the QEII afloat the Thames.
During their trip they begin reconsidering an earlier proposal to record at Stax Records in Memphis, TN. Getting back to their roots in the city that inspired those roots to begin with. George Martin declines to produce the record as does Emerick and Johns (Spector is not asked). Brian Wilson is asked by McCartney in an attempt to rescue him from his current depression and addiction issues. The band disagrees on Stax but, considering Al Green's success decide instead to record at Royal Studios with Wilson and Willie Mitchell co-producing and co-engineering.
After another brief vacation period, the band along with Billy Preston arrive in Memphis to record Come Together an album featuring guest appearances by Eric Clapton.
With Brian Wilson handling the strings and Willie Mitchell handling the horns, and with Billy Preston on Moog Synthesizer and the famous Al Green Hammond B3 organ the album is considered a post-psychedelic soul-rock masterpiece. It features mostly material similar to OTL's Abbey Road, but with a soul-funk edge that ushers in a wave of post-psychedelic soul-rock embraced by all races.
Once again the Beatles are on a high, but decide unanimously to take a break from recording and performing together while they still like one another.
Come Together is the highest selling and most critically acclaimed record since the White Album, saving Brian Wilson from the depths of depression, addiction, and paranoia (the Beatles all will guest perform on his next project SMiLE released in the early seventies) and Royal Studios becomes the new Stax in Memphis, with both Mitchell and Wilson receiving Grammys.
The band reunites briefly for one final album with George Martin entitled Everest which will contain mostly material from the individual members OTL first solo albums. While well received commercially and critically, it is clear that it is the Beatles' swan song.
The group disbands on good terms and will of course eventually reunite in the late seventies and early eighties.
Boy, that was longer than I intended...
