BEATLEMANIA 2026
MORE THAN ANY TIME SINCE THE 60s, THE LIVERPOOL BAND APPEAR TO BE EVERYWHERE + EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH MIKE MCCARTNEY
Once upon a time in Hamburg… Pete Best, George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney & Stuart Sutcliffe. Photo by Astrid Kirchher.
I grew up in a Beatle-free household. My parents had no interest in music so, even though they were young(ish) in the 1960s, they did not succumb to any kind of Beatlemania.
Their disinterest (and it wasn’t religious/political - they just weren’t interested in music) stands as a reminder to me how an individual/outfit can be global superstars yet the vast majority of people won’t be aware them. Just as today I can’t name a single Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber tune. Not that either are a phenomenon comparable to the Beatles, but both have been widely beloved for a couple of decades apiece now, and I remain oblivious.
Anyway, as I didn’t get my first transistor radio until the mid-1970s - by which time Paul McCartney’s new group Wings were on high rotation - I also remained indifferent to the Beatles for a long time. Admittedly, I loved The Monkees’ TV show (then repeated on Kiwi TV as a post-school entertainment) and the small amount of reading material I’d found on the series informed me the band (and their humour/ escapades) was modelled on the Beatles.
By the time I became a pre-adolescent music obsessive my enthusiasms for 60s era bands found the Beach Boys, Rolling Stones and Creedence Clearwater all holding my attention. The Beatles? I liked the few tunes I’d heard but they didn’t click with me in the way the aforementioned groups did.
Even when I first visited Liverpool I didn’t seek out any Beatles sites. Yet I’d visited Gracelands in Memphis: having once been briefly enamoured with the young Elvis ensured I had to pay homage to the Taj Mahal of the cheeseburger King.
As the years passed I began paying more attention to the Beatles. For no specific reason - I missed the Anthology series when it was screened on ITV in 1995 - but, at some point, I began listening closer: after years of dense engagement in music from across the globe + blues/R&B/country/jazz, I found the Fab Four’s music refreshing.
I’d avoided the band because they were so famous, feeling there was nothing there for me to learn from. Once I got over myself I began enjoying the Liverpool band’s best efforts - and there are many of them.
Perhaps I simply caught up with what commentators call the ‘zeitgeist’, because in summer 2026 it appears that Beatlemania has taken hold again.
Once upon a time: the boy band who changed the world.
For starters, Paul McCartney is everywhere - while I tend to ignore Taylor Swift news, I can’t help but note that Macca sang I Want to Hold Your Hand for the first time in 60+ years at her Madison Square Gardens wedding.
He surely was handsomely rewarded for his 3 minute stint, although he likely sees it as part of his promo for the recently released album The Boys Of Dungeon Lane, which topped the UK album charts, as one expects, and got vast amounts of coverage (Ringo’s also released a new album, demonstrating his love of country music).
Just last week Kelly, who I volunteer alongside, mentioned her daughter “who works for a posh West End hairdresser” came home saying she’d cut the hair of “some old bloke who used to sing in a boy band”. Daughter had never heard of Macca or the Beatles but said he tipped really well. Its good to know at 84 Paul is not a meanie.
The huge interest surrounding Macca activities is, perhaps sadly for him, not because the public is excited about his new album, US TV (and wedding) appearances etc, but because the Beatles are a national (and international) obsession.
Every week seems to see new books about the Beatles being published; there are now multiple Beatles podcasts, fan forums, Peter Jackson’s eight-hour documentary Get Back. At time of writing, there are at least two screen projects in production: Sam Mendes’ four individual Beatle biopics, and Christian Schwochow’s BBC drama series Hamburg Days, charting the band’s formative time as a human jukebox in tough clubs on the Reeperbahn.
And the songs are everywhere - especially their gentler, melodic late ‘60s anthems: Here Comes The Sun, Let It Be, Hey Jude etc
While the building where the Beatles played their last ever gig (in London’s Saville Row) is being turned into an exhibition space, where from 2027 fans can experience seven floors of memorabilia and never-before-seen archive material.
A Grade II listed mansion, 3 Savile Row served as the band’s headquarters between 1968 and 1972 - and they recorded their final album, Let It Be, in the basement.
The building will include a recreation of the basement studio where Let It Be was recorded, and the opportunity to relive the Beatles’ iconic rooftop concert on exactly the spot where it happened. It appearsthis museum is being developed by Apple (the Beatles’ company - Paul, Ringo and the estates of George and John) which like its US Mac namesake is intent on keeping the cash rolling in.
In Liverpool Beatles sites are a large part of the local tourist industry: fans can see Beatles memorabilia at Liverpool’s Beatles Museum and the nearby Beatles Story - but neither are officially licensed by the band. Fans also flock to the childhood homes of McCartney and Harrison - the locations have become so popular a code of conduct for tour guides and visitors was recently introduced to protect the local residents who live in these sleepy suburban streets.
And while there are no previously unreleased tunes left in the Abbey Road vaults, deluxe “remastered” editions of the band’s 1960s albums will continue to be released and voraciously consumed.
Why so much enthusiasm now for a band who broke up 56 years ago and, while always popular, were regarded as very “old hat” through the decades that followed of punk and funk, grunge and grime? Only Britpop - a nostalgic indie rock genre - notably talked up the Beatles.
Perhaps this is because the tribal drive that once powered youth music has lost its spark? Or the omnipresence of the Beatles has settled and now appears to be part of the culture? The rock era is long over but it could be that the Beatles’ songs and character now appeal to all ages?
The band’s wit and warmth, freshness and idealism, recalls a far more optimistic Britain, a time when young, creatives pushed boundaries and railed against social mores. Yet, at the same time, the Beatles were cuddly, down to earth. The Western world embraced their joy and - as with England winning the World Cup in 1966 - their achievement became mythic, heroic.
Let’s hope in our divided times the movies and museum and all else surrounding the most successful boy band ever continue to spread the love the Beatles so believed in.
Right, I have seen Macca once in concert - a good, solid hits set - but never met him or Ringo. I did interview his brother Mike McCartney a couple of years ago when he had a photography exhibition in London. As his photos were focused on the young Beatles our discussion also involved such.
I wrote up the interview but the feature never ended up being published - thus for the Yak’s paying subscribers here is an exclusive insider’s account on the Beatles before Beatlemania made them household names.
Mike McCartney;s photo of the Beatles in Liverpool, 1962. Poor Pete Best…
