jan 30, 1969 - The Beatles' rooftop concert

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On January 30th, 1969, the Beatles performed a concert from the rooftop of their Apple Corps headquarters at 3 Savile Row, in central London's office and fashion district. Joined by guest keyboardist Billy Preston, the band played a 42-minute set before the Metropolitan Police arrived and ordered them to reduce the volume. It was the final public performance of their career. They performed nine takes of five new songs as crowds of onlookers, many on lunch breaks, congregated in the streets and on the rooftops of nearby buildings to listen. The concert ended with "Get Back", and John Lennon joking, "I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we've passed the audition." The first performance of "I've Got a Feeling" and single takes of "One After 909" and "Dig a Pony" were included on Let It Be, the band's 12th and final studio album.

The Beatles' rooftop concert marked the end of an era for the group. The group recorded one more album, Abbey Road, for which work started the following month, but in September 1969 Lennon left the band. At the time, many observers believed that the concert was a trial run for a return to live performances and touring, with the band re-engaging with their rock 'n' roll roots. The concert footage provided the climax of Lindsay-Hogg's documentary, originally planned as a TV special but released as the Let It Be film in May 1970, a month after the Beatles' break-up.

Author James Perone wrote in 2005 that the concert had achieved "iconic status" among fans as the Beatles' final live appearance; and in the history of rock music on the level of the Monterey Pop, Woodstock, and Altamont festivals. He argued that the show was not technically a concert because of the secrecy surrounding its presentation, so the band's last concert occurred on August 29th, 1966 in San Francisco—but it captured an unpredictability typical of live rock performances in 1969.

The audio recording and film footage of the concert have been released in various formats:

- The first releases were in May 1970. 'Let It Be', the band's 12th and final studio album, includes the first performance of "I've Got a Feeling" and the recordings of "One After 909" and "Dig a Pony". Footage of the concert was included in 'Let It Be', the documentary film directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg for the Beatles' Apple Corps media company.

- In 1996, the third live performance of "Get Back"—the last song of the Beatles' final live performance—was included on 'Anthology 3', the band's third compilation album.

- 'Let It Be... Naked', a 2003 remix of the 1970 album, includes an edit of the two takes of "Don't Let Me Down" and a composite of the two takes of "I've Got a Feeling".

- The 2021 special edition of the 'Let It Be' album includes the first performance of "Don't Let Me Down", along with brief jams of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" (after the first "Get Back") and "God Save the Queen" (after "Dig a Pony"), recorded while Parsons changed tapes. Lennon sang lines from "Danny Boy" and "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody" respectively after the songs "One After 909" and "I've Got a Feeling" (Take 2).

- Footage from the concert appears in the third and final episode of the 2021 documentary series 'The Beatles: Get Back', which also uses other footage recorded for the 1970 documentary. The concert sequence was remastered for IMAX and released in February 2022 by Disney as 'The Beatles: Get Back – The Rooftop Concert'.

- On January 28th, 2022, the audio of the performance was released by Apple Corps, Capitol Records, and Universal Music Enterprises to streaming services under the title 'Get Back – The Rooftop Performance'.

McCartney played a surprise mini-concert in midtown Manhattan from the top of the marquee of the Ed Sullivan Theater on July 15th, 2009, where he was recording a performance for the Late Show with David Letterman. News of the event spread via Twitter and word of mouth, and nearby street corners were closed off to accommodate the crowd.

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