New Beatles Documentary Shares Stories From Band, Reporter Along For Ride
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A new documentary about The Beatles from director Ron Howard will be premiering in Philadelphia on Saturday.
It's called Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years, and it promises to tell the story you don't know about the biggest band that ever was, during the first part of their career. You'll recognize another guy who had a ticket to ride with the Fab Four.
"When I saw the film for the first time I felt like I was living it again," said Larry Kane, a KYW Newsradio Special Contributor.
In 1964, Kane was a cub radio reporter whom The Beatles invited to witness the British Invasion.
"I am not going to go on tour with a band that will be here in November and gone in December," Kane said.
Of course, he went. What he found was a four-piece oozing sex appeal and musical mastery at a time when this country needed the diversion.
"Ron Howard managed to bring you back in time, after the assassination of a president, the war in Vietnam, the nation is simmering with tension," Kane explained. "And The Beatles were the ultimate shared experience."
But he also uncovered that the band went deeper than the blood-curdling screams.
"They said there is no way we're going to play in that venue if anyone is prevented from seeing us and sitting with other people because of the color of their skin," Kane recalled.
Throughout the film, we share Kane's front-row seat.
"What you see in this rare footage, is you're close-up on the faces of the Beatles on-stage," Kane said. "You see what an incredible band they were. And then there's a dramatic conclusion to this movie that will leave some people in tears. They performed their last and final concert in a very unusual venue."
Eight Days A Week: The Touring Years opens at the Prince Theater in Center City and streams on Hulu on Saturday.