The Beatles fans' screams. 'Live Beatles' and 'Studio Beatles' had become entirely different beasts." The band's concert at San Francisco's Candlestick Park on 29 August was their last commercial concert. It marked the end of a four-year period dominated by almost nonstop touring that included over 1,400 concert appearances internationally. Freed from the burden of touring, the Beatles embraced an increasingly experimental approach as they recorded "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", beginning in late November 1966. According to engineer Geoff Emerick, the album's recording took over 700 hours. He recalled the band's insistence "that everything on "Sgt. Pepper" had to be
The Stones in the Park concerts on 6 and 13 July, although the performances were not free. The festival was an important one for the Stones. They had not performed a public concert since their 1967 European Tour, and in 1968 had only performed at the NME Poll Winners Concert and at their television project "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus". In interviews, Mick Jagger stated that he felt the band's forte was performing live, rather than in the studio, and was keen to return to the stage. Blackhill Enterprises, which had already managed several successful concerts in Hyde Park, including a festival headlined