Last Sunday, February 9th, CBS honored The Beatles’s fifty year anniversary of playing the Ed Sullivan Show. With Beatles band members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in attendance, various artists from different genres of music was there to honor them. A few artists to mention were Dave Grohl, Stevie Wonder, Ed Sheeran, Katy Perry, John Mayer, Keith Urban, Maroon 5, and the Eurythmics (The Eurythmics reuniting for just the night).
All of the acts took turns playing their favorite Beatles song and saying what impact The Beatles had on them as musicians. My favorite performance of the night, besides Paul and Ringo playing, was Ed Sheeran rendition of In My Life. Sheeran performed the song very peacefully while staying close to the original.
Paul and Ringo each played three song by themselves and then joined together to play A Little Help From My Friends, and the best sing along song Hey Jude. During Hey Jude all of the acts were brought on stage to sing the “na na nana” part of the song which was really cool.
Listening to Paul and Ringo play, you would never be able to tell that they were both in the seventies; they both were simply outstanding.
Throughout the night they had little bios of each Beatle talking about their youth and how they met. Paul McCartney said something really remarkable, “We got lucky.” He said while talking to David Letterman about their Ed Sullivan performance.
Their performance on the Ed Sullivan show was one of the biggest things to ever happen to American music. The Beatles were watched by nearly every person on every TV that night. Without their performance, music in America would have been completely different.