Live at the BBC (1995)
Disc One
1.Beatle Greetings
2.From Us To You
3.Riding on a Bus
4.I Got a Woman
5.Too Much Monkey Business
6.Keep Your Hands Off My Baby
7.I'll Be On My Way
8.Young Blood
9.A Shot of Rhythm and Blues
10.Sure to Fall (In Love With You)
11.Some Other Girl
12.Thank You Girl
13.Sha La La La!
14.Baby It's You
15.That's Alright Mama
16.Carol
17.Soldier of Love (Lay Down Your Arms)
18.A Little Rhyme
19.Clarabella
20.I'm Gonna Sit Right Down (And Cry Over You)
21.Crying, Waiting, Hoping
22.Dear Wack!
23.You Really Got A Hold On Me
24.To Know Her is To Love Her
25.A Taste of Honey
26.Long Tall Sally
27.I Saw Her Standing There
28.The Honeymoon Song
29.Johnny B. Goode
30.Memphis
31.Lucille
32.Can't Buy Me Love
33.From Fluff To You
34.'Til There Was You
Disc Two
1.Crinsk Dee Night
2.A Hard Day's Night
3.Have a Banana
4.I Wanna Be Your Man
5.Just a Rumor
6.Roll Over Beethoven
7.All My Loving
8.Things We Said Today
9.She's A Woman
10.Sweet Little Sixteen
11.1812!
12.Lonesome Tears in My Eyes
13.Nothin' Shakin' (But the Leaves on the Tree)
14.The Hippy Hippy Shake
15.Glad All Over
16.I Just Don't Understand
17.So How Come (No One Loves Me)
18.I Feel Fine
19.I'm A Loser
20.Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby
21.Rock & Roll Music
22.Ticket To Ride
23.Dizzy Miss Lizzy
24.Medley:Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey
25.Set Fire to That Lot!
26.Matchbox
27.I Forgot to Remember to Forget
28.Love These Goon Shows!
29.I Got to Find My Baby
30.Ooh! My Soul
31.Ooh! My Arms
32.Don't Ever Change
33.Slow Down
34.Honey Don't
35.Love Me Do
By the mid-1990s, the Beatles had been history for a quarter of a century. Apart from a few unremarkable live recordings that failed to justify their existence on compact disc, there had been no new releases of note. So when Live at the BBC was announced, few anticipated the fever it would ignite. Sales exploded. Stores sold out. The verdict was in—The Beatles, long dissolved, remained eternally relevant.
At first glance, the project didn’t promise much. The recordings, after all, were not studio masterworks or undiscovered outtakes, but performances broadcast live on British radio between 1962 and 1965—already well-trodden years in Beatles lore. Moreover, the specter of the dreaded double-CD loomed large. These weren't LPs you could pick up for pocket change. Yet despite its apparent redundancy and commercial packaging, Live at the BBC proved revelatory.
The strength of the release lay not just in its archival value, but in its vitality. These performances catch The Beatles in flight—early, hungry, and razor sharp. It was a time when Beatlemania ruled, when concerts lasted barely 40 minutes and were drowned in teenage hysteria. In this controlled but spontaneous studio setting, absent the tidal wave of screams, the band shone. They played tight, fast, and joyfully. Tracks from the pre-Help! albums were interspersed with exuberant renditions of covers that had become staples of their stage repertoire—Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Motown—all delivered with raucous immediacy.
This was The Beatles as they had rarely been heard: not as studio alchemists layering tape loops and backwards guitars, but as a sharp, versatile live combo. Their voices blend with youthful vigor. The guitars ring clean and propulsive. Even the interruptions—snippets of interview, stray laughter, cheeky asides—helped shape a fuller image of the band as performers, entertainers, and, crucially, friends.
In total, the set boasts sixty-nine tracks, though this number is inflated by ephemera. Once distilled, you're left with around fifty actual songs—a haul that, by any standard, is extraordinary. The sequencing may feel sprawling, but the effect is cumulative: a journey through the rise of the world’s most famous band, delivered not from myth or memory, but from tape reels spinning in real time.
For those who revere Revolver or Abbey Road as the band’s most important achievements (and rightly so), Live at the BBC offers a necessary recalibration. Before they were sonic innovators, The Beatles were a band—a very, very good one.