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The Beatles played in fascist Spain...

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  • pigfacepigface Frets: 213
    It's not the same as playing as "Sun City" where you are playing to a segregated audience. 
    Sun City was never segregated. It was part of a fake 'homeland' where South Africans could gamble and miscegenate to their hearts' content when such things were verboten in the 'real' SA. 
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  • PoboyPoboy Frets: 431
    What is the purpose of this thread exactly?
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  • BillDLBillDL Frets: 7029
    edited January 2022
    The purpose was to register surprise and perhaps disgust at the fact that the four floppy-haired muppets did what their managers said and fulfilled a booking made by them to play in a country which, at the time, was being run by a fascist dictator while international holidaymakers lay suntanning on beaches without any moral standards or sense of guilt.
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  • Poboy said:
    What is the purpose of this thread exactly?
    Well, my surprise that they played in Spain. Surely in the 60s, the general public would have known about the atrocities commited by Franco. I have never read of the Beatles or any other groups getting criticised for this. Then again, they had a tourist industry in the 60s, 70s too, and most people went there without a care.
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  • They also spent a lot of time in Tenerife. 

     Ive no problem with them playing Spain back then. However, Queen playing sun City is one of the many reasons (most of them their terrible songs, constant shape shifting to fit into popular Genres, and ripping off Sparks). 
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  • EricTheWearyEricTheWeary Frets: 16253
    Poboy said:
    What is the purpose of this thread exactly?
    Well, my surprise that they played in Spain. Surely in the 60s, the general public would have known about the atrocities commited by Franco. I have never read of the Beatles or any other groups getting criticised for this. Then again, they had a tourist industry in the 60s, 70s too, and most people went there without a care.
    Franco was also seen as a moderniser in many regards ( a tourist industry in a country that was otherwise dirt poor) and was hand in hand with the Catholic church so I gather enjoyed reasonable popular support. The defence of fascists being 'well at least the trains run on time' and Franco seems to have been that kind of dictator. The atrocities were to some extent at least not known about, secret graves weren't discovered for decades until after he'd gone. 
    So, to what extent four young men from Liverpool had concern or even basic awareness of the facist state in Spain I don't know but much of the UK seems to have been largely unconcerned. 


    Tipton is a small fishing village in the borough of Sandwell. 
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  • BlueingreenBlueingreen Frets: 2582
    edited January 2022
    I'm afraid this thread is based on a premise that is completely devoid of any sense of history.  The idea that popular musicians should avoid playing places with unpleasant systems of government may seem natural to us, but outside of a minuscule radical minority it would have occurred to hardly anybody during most of the 60s. The Beatles wouldn't have done it because neither would anybody else.

    Pop musicians boycotting nasty regimes didn't just automatically happen because some musicians were virtuous.  An idea had to develop and gain traction first.  That hadn't happened by the time The Beatles went to Spain. 

    (There's a whole other argument also about the fact that rock-based pop-music just didn't develop the cultural heft to matter to rogue regimes until fairly well into the 70s.  But let's leave that to one side).

    The idea of boycotting nasty regimes had its roots in the anti-apartheid movement.  One of the earliest examples of the counter culture taking on that regime in Britain was when the Springboks rugby team toured in 69/70.  There were protests and demonstrations.  Protestors at a match against the North of Scotland invaded the pitch and many were arrested and charged with breach of the peace.  John Lennon paid all their fines.

    The Beatles have nothing to apologise for.
    “To a man with a hammer every problem looks like a nail.”
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  • Did any bands play in the USSR in the 60s or 70s? Or were they even allowed!
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  • Philly_QPhilly_Q Frets: 22515
    Did any bands play in the USSR in the 60s or 70s? Or were they even allowed!
    Well the Beatles went back there, apparently.
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  • MusicwolfMusicwolf Frets: 3627
    Did any bands play in the USSR in the 60s or 70s? Or were they even allowed!

    I believe that Cliff Richard was the first in 1976
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  • CaseOfAceCaseOfAce Frets: 1304
    Pop musicians boycotting nasty regimes didn't just automatically happen because some musicians were virtuous.  An idea had to develop and gain traction first.  That hadn't happened by the time The Beatles went to Spain.

    ->

    A news report describes the protest set off by British pop star Dusty Springfield when she refused to perform during a tour in South Africa unless she could sing to a non-segregated audience. Although her 1964 tour was cancelled, many other British rock stars joined her in condemning apartheid.


    Turns out Dusty didn't actually finish the tour and was deported.
    I'd assume that the Beatles would have been aware of this since it would have been in the tabloids or on the radio back then?

    Great thread by the way - a chap above asked what was point of it - but I've learnt stuff I never knew before.
    ...she's got Dickie Davies eyes...
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  • EricTheWearyEricTheWeary Frets: 16253
    Did any bands play in the USSR in the 60s or 70s? Or were they even allowed!
    Cliff Richard played in Russia in 1976. A lot of it wasn’t allowed. I think as artists went to Russia and China it was pretty much the opposite perception that rather than being seen to support a regime they were part of breaking down barriers. 
    Tipton is a small fishing village in the borough of Sandwell. 
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  • Philly_QPhilly_Q Frets: 22515
    I don't know if it's strictly true, but legend has it that Uriah Heep were the first Western rock band to play in Russia.  That was in 1987.

    I think some pop artists like Elton John, Billy Joel (and Cliff Richard, I've just learned) had been there before.

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  • DominicDominic Frets: 16003
    Musicwolf said:
    Did any bands play in the USSR in the 60s or 70s? Or were they even allowed!

    I believe that Cliff Richard was the first in 1976
    You see ...........they got what they deserved in the end !

    On another note .......a lot of people who didn't holiday in Fascist Spain holidayed instead in Communist Yugoslavia under Tito
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  • The Beatles have nothing to apologise for.
    ...not even Maxwell's Silver Hammer? 

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  • TheMarlinTheMarlin Frets: 7743
    You can’t judge events from 50 years ago by modern moral standard.  Was a completely different world back then.  
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  • How I won the War (John Lennon, Michael Crawford) was also filmed in Spain around 1966, he also wrote SFF at the same time.
    “Ken sent me.”
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  • Philly_QPhilly_Q Frets: 22515
    How I won the War (John Lennon, Michael Crawford) was also filmed in Spain around 1966, he also wrote SFF at the same time.
    Now that you mention it, all those great Sergio Leone Spaghetti Westerns were filmed in Spain.
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  • Philly_Q said:
    How I won the War (John Lennon, Michael Crawford) was also filmed in Spain around 1966, he also wrote SFF at the same time.
    Now that you mention it, all those great Sergio Leone Spaghetti Westerns were filmed in Spain.
    Paella westerns?
    Sangria westerns?

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  • DannyPDannyP Frets: 1667
    Philly_Q said:
    How I won the War (John Lennon, Michael Crawford) was also filmed in Spain around 1966, he also wrote SFF at the same time.
    Now that you mention it, all those great Sergio Leone Spaghetti Westerns were filmed in Spain.
    Spain: home of spaghetti.
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