The Beatles Live U.S.A. Vol. 2 Live Anthology Tour Of America 1965 (Master Of Beatles Essentials MBE-009-0021/2)
Setlist : Disc 1: Shea Stadium, Flushing, New York – August 15th, 1965: Intro., Twist & Shout, I Feel Fine, Dizzy Miss Lizzy, Ticket To Ride, Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby, Can’t Buy Me Love, Baby’s In Black, Act Naturally, A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, I’m Down. Fulton County Stadium, Atlanta, GA – August 18th, 1965: Intro., Twist & Shout, She’s A Woman, I Feel Fine, Dizzy Miss Lizzy, Ticket To Ride, Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby, Can’t Buy Me Love, Baby’s In Black, I Wanna Be Your Man, Help!, I’m Down.
Disc 2: Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, TX – August 19th, 1965 (matinee): Intro., Twist & Shout, She’s A Woman, I Feel Fine, Dizzy Miss Lizzy, Ticket To Ride, Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby, Can’t Buy Me Love, Baby’s In Black, I Wanna Be Your Man, A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, I’m Down. Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, TX – August 19th, 1965 (evening): Intro., Twist & Shout, She’s A Woman, I Feel Fine, Dizzy Miss Lizzy, Ticket To Ride, Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby, Can’t Buy Me Love, Baby’s In Black, I Wanna Be Your Man, A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, I’m Down
Review :
The second volume of MBE’s ambitious Live Anthology series documents a bulk of the second US tour in 1965 and is probably the most enjoyable of the three titles. The four concerts covered all come from professional soundboard sources and all sound excellent. Moreover the band sound very enthusiastic and play some very memorable performances.
The first half of disc one carries the famous August 15th Shea Stadium performance straight from the television soundtrack including the voice-overs during “A Hard Day’s Night”. This begins with Ed Sullivan’s introduction (and Sullivan is referred to as a great American). The Beatles are met with a deafening roar and deliver a very enjoyable fun set. Seasoned collectors will already have this in many different forms, but this is simply one of the most important concerts in the history of rock and everyone must have it.
This sounds like a multi-source mix between an excellent sounding soundboard recording and a very good mono video soundtrack. The soundtrack begins with Ed Sullivan’s introduction of the band. The soundboard picks up with the first two songs “Twist & Shout” and “I Feel Fine” until it is edited to the soundtrack again with “Dizzy Miss Lizzy”. That tape runs into “Baby’s In Black” which is again the first tape source. “Act Naturally” comes from video, as does “A Hard Day’s Night”. The first tape source is used for the final two numbers, “Help!” and “I’m Down”. It is ironic that we can hear the show much better today than the more than 50,000 who were at Shea that night. MBE could have improved this tape if they found a copy without the voice-overs though.
The second show on disc one is the Atlanta performance following their appearance at Shea and was most recently released as Going Back To The Atlanta 1965 on Misterclaudel. The sound quality of MBE’s version is slightly better and cleaner sounding than the Misterclaudel. The second disc covers soundboard recordings from their two shows in Houston on August 19th, 1965. These were released before on The Ultimate Live Collection Vol. 1 Yellow Dog (YD038) along with the 1964 Philadelphia and Indianapolis soundboards. Both shows are in excellent quality and are wild. The first show has to be interrupted to restore order in the venue.
Beatles U.S.A. Vol. 2 is probably the best of the three volumes. All the material comes from excellent sources and they are all very good shows. The band sound like they are still having fun playing live before the exhaust sets in the following year. And similarly with the other titles all the tapes have been remastered to bring more clarity to the music making them that much more enjoyable.
