Despite breaking up before 1970, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and John Lennon each suggested they missed being in The Beatles. The Fab Four would never work together as a four-piece again, though new songs would release intermittently between their break-up and now. Songs like Real Love and Now and Then were released after Lennon’s passing, with the 2023 single dropping over 20 years after Harrison died.
But the so-called Quiet One of The Beatles had once shared the thing he missed about working with his former bandmates. In an interview given seven years after the band last worked together, Harrison admitted that it was a simple luxury of being with Lennon, McCartney, and Starr that he missed most of all.
He said: “I just had a good time just playing, you know. That’s what I miss. Even when we sold records and started doing a lot of tours, it was a bit of a drag because we’d go on the road and we’d play the same tunes to different people, and then we’d drop a few and add the new ones all the time. It got stale. I felt stale, you know, because you play the same riffs… da-da-ding-ding-dow, you know. Twist and Shout and things. By the time you came off the road, touring the world, I’d just want to not particularly…”
Harrison would hardly miss touring at all and rarely performed after leaving The Beatles. He would tour immediately after leaving the group to promote All Things Must Pass, but then made few appearances until a tour alongside Eric Clapton in 1991 on a joint tour with the guitar legend. The pair toured Japan the year before Harrison’s final date at the Royal Albert Hall.
Harrison would go on to perform at a Bob Dylan concert, celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of Dylan’s self-titled album. Aside from a VH1 Studios recording and a memorial chapel performance of Your True Love, he would never play on stage again.
The final concert of Harrison saw him play predominantly solo efforts but also featured a series of Beatles numbers and a hits-laden encore which saw him reprise the song twice. He was joined by son Dhani Harrison and Joe Walsh on guitar for the first Chuck Berry cover, according to Setlist FM.
A full setlist for the show can be found below:
- I Want to Tell You
- Old Brown Shoe
- Taxman
- Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)
- Something
- What is Life
- Piggies
- Got My Mind Set on You
- Cloud Nine
- Here Comes the Sun
- My Sweet Lord
- All Those Years Ago
- Cheers Down
- Isn’t it a Pity
- Devil’s Radio
- While My Guitar Gently Weeps (with Ringo Starr and Gary Moore)
- Roll Over Beethoven (with Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh, and Dhani Harrison)
- Drum Jam
- Roll Over Beethoven
His show at the Royal Albert Hall had been in support of the National Law Party, a political party formed and sharing the belief system of Transcendental Meditation. Harrison followed the practices of Transcendental Meditation, as did film director David Lynch, and fellow Beatles member, Paul McCartney.
Though the concert was laden with hits, it was in support of the National Law Party, which received just 0.19% of votes at the 1992 General Election, which was held just three days after the concert.
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