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John Lennon said he let his former bandmate, George Harrison, throw his glasses to the floor backstage after a New York show on George’s 1974 Dark Horse tour. The “Imagine” singer knew to let his friend vent his frustration, even if his glasses had to be a casualty.
The former Beatle’s Dark Horse tour was doomed to fail from the start
George’s 1974 Dark Horse tour was doomed to fail from the start. He’d returned from a refreshing trip to India motivated to make an album and go on tour. George might’ve been positive and energized, but his urgency to do everything only backfired. Dark Horse came out rushed, and George should’ve realized touring solo would be different from touring with The Beatles.
On top of that, George over-worked his voice and developed laryngitis by the time he played his first show. George didn’t make things better. He alienated his audiences by inserting heavy religious overtones, starting each show with lengthy performances from Ravi Shankar and other Indian musicians, and not playing Beatles songs (initially).
George’s drummer, Andy Newmark, thought the former Beatle’s Dark Horse tour was risky without its religious overtones. George knew how to tour with The Beatles, not solo. There was no one with him. He had his backing band, but the harsh criticism from the press and fans fell on him alone.
In Here Comes The Sun: The Spiritual And Musical Journey Of George Harrison, Joshua M. Greene wrote, “Despite adverse circumstances and hostile critics, George pushed on with the tour. ‘You either go crackers and commit suicide,’ he told a reporter, or ‘attach yourself more strongly to an inner strength.’”
To another reporter, George said, “You know, I didn’t force you or anybody at gunpoint to come to see me. And I don’t care if nobody comes to see me, nobody ever buys another record of me. I don’t give a s***, it doesn’t matter to me, but I’m going to do what I feel within myself.”
John Lennon let George Harrison vent his frustration during George’s Dark Horse tour
By the time he played Long Island’s Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Dec. 15, George was losing patience with everything.
One writer wrote that George performed to what they deemed “perceptible boredom” on the part of the audience. Greene wrote, “The review went on to claim that organist Billy Preston ‘salvaged’ the evening with his hit songs ‘Nothing from Nothing’ and ‘Outta-Space,’ which had the audience dancing.”
John attended the show and went backstage to congratulate George. However, the meeting between the bandmates quickly soured.
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Greene continued, “George succumbed to his own exhaustion and foul mood and demanded to know why John had failed to side with him instead of Yoko over the Bangladesh concert. He grabbed John’s glasses and threw them to the floor.
“John was no stranger to anger that seethed from depression and did nothing. ‘I know what pain is,’ he said, ‘so I let him do it.’”
John let George vent his frustrations on him because they had that kind of relationship.
John knew how to ‘deflate’ any negative feeling you had about him, according to George
George knew John wasn’t perfect either.
During a 1989 interview with Mark Rowland (per George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters), George explained how he stayed friends with John over the years. He didn’t take any of John’s negativity to heart because he always apologized for his behavior.
“But John, you know, he was a good lad, he was—there was a part of him that was saintly, that aspired to the truth and great things,” George said. “And there was a part of him that was just, you know… a looney! [Lauaghter.]
“Just like the rest of us! And he had his mood swings and that, but he was basically very honest. If he was a bastard one day, he’d say, ‘Ah well, f*** that, you know, I’m sorry, I was wrong.’ And he’d just deflate any feeling you had against him, any negative feeling. Not like some other people I know who sit on walls … and don’t come clean.”
George likely apologized to John for his behavior backstage. The former bandmates had been through so much together they couldn’t have a true falling out.
