The Beatles: Live at the Hollywood Bowl review – proto-punk and screaming fans

(Universal/Apple)

The first thing you hear on this buffed-up version of live album The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl is a wall of piercing fans’ screams. The sonic dominance of that cacophony over the Fab Four’s performance was one of the reasons that the original release – taken from two concerts the band held at the venue at the height of Beatlemania – took until 1977 to surface, and is regarded as one of the weaker albums in their catalogue. Now, though, to coincide with the documentary Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years, the recordings have been remixed and remastered by George Martin’s son Giles, with four additional tracks, including I Want to Hold Your Hand.

Martin Jr’s sonic whizzery doesn’t extend to removing the screams from the recording – they continue throughout, a potent reminder of the pandemonium the Beatles generated at their touring peak – but he has brought out both the melody and muscular tautness of the band’s live performance: on their cover of Roll Over Beethoven you can almost hear the rumblings of proto-punk, while She Loves You sounds almost as sweet as on record.