Beatles freaks love milestones, and when it comes to the big one--what moment portended the group's demise?--there's no shortage of possibilities. Was it the phone call Paul received chez the Maharishi informing him that the Beatles' business guru had died of a carbitral overdose? The half-baked Magical Mystery Tour project, Paul's money-hemorrhaging power-grab that Bob Spitz says "provided the first signs of their fallibility"? John's first meeting with Yoko Ono in 1966 (after which, John told Jan Wenner, "I decided to leave the group")? Any of the handful of times a Beatle traipsed out of the Let It Be sessions, swearing off the group forever, only to return?
...or, as numerous rock critics as well as the PR wing of Shout! Factory would have us believe, was it the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival Festival in September, 1969? Yesterday, Shout! rereleased D.A. Pennebaker's film of the Toronto concert (it's been off the shelves since BMG pulled a 2002 iteration), and in a wise marketing move the company has answered the above question with stirring finality: this concert, they assure us, "signalled the end of the Beatles."
