My first concert was on the World Slavery Tour 1984 to promote the Powerslave album.
I was 14 and had never heard anything that loud. Fantastic!
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I started listening to them being a fanboi in 1985/86, but the first concert I went to was Fear of the Dark tour in 1992.
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And dangerous without earplugs 
I can attest to that. My first concert at age of 14 was Motorhead, right down at the front just below Lemmy. I couldn’t hear properly for a week, couldn’t get the grin off my face for two!
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That Gladwell 10,000 hours thing gets debunked over and over again - but it just persists. Hilariously it’s been debunked so many times that there are articles on how often it’s been debunked. It’s one of those things like “8 glasses of water a day” that somehow made it into our collective zeitgeist - and just won’t shake loose.
I love this quote from the article above:
The 10,000-hour rule perpetuates the exhausting idea that we all can, and therefore should, be great at anything we put our minds to. And it can blind us to the joy that can be found in mediocrity.
Man, does that speak to me and my bass. I’ll maybe never find 10,000 hours but I won’t let that stand in the way of enjoying the hell out of being mediocre!
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There are ways of encouraging the creativity. What many writers do is sit down and write out any old shit, often called free writing. You start with the colour of your wallpaper and end up with a master plan to cure the world of poverty. One thought leads to another and this act of writing actually encourages the creative process.
It’s the same with music. Get the bass out and start noodling. Anything! Don’t have any expectations, just enjoy yourself and see where it take you.
Look into the process called “flow”.
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I believe, and could be wrong, that the part all the debunking misses is the ‘opportunity’ piece that also goes with it. Sure, you have to have a personality that loves the thing you do as well (or you wouldn’t put in the time) but I do not believe the 10,000 hours alone is enough…spending them around the people he did is the opportunity part in my mind.
But I sure could be wrong.
I drink 8 mugs of tea a day. Is that better?
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I probably drink that much coffee myself - but I have a suspicion you and I are both caffeine addicts - nothing to do with water. 
If you are trying to become an expert at peeing, yeah.
That much tea should get your 10,000 hours pretty quick.
I use the Stadium Pal so I don’t have to get up too often.
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So, like the vast majority of people who play golf 
I could never understand how such a large group of people could suck at something, make little effort to improve and continue to do it… and concluded that it’s more about drinking and getting away from one’s wife 
Also explains my youth as an Ottawa Roughriders and maple leafs fan 
(the mediocrity, not the drinking and wife) 
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Perhaps because they simply enjoy doing it, and don’t stress over doing it really well.
I had a lot of friends who spent the weekend and first few days of the week completely bend out of shape at how they played golf that weekend, the one shot they missed, etc.
When I played, I hovered around 95-98 and had a blast just driving around in nature drinking in a miniature car with no sides.
Oh I understand why, just now how but it’s like I’ve said many times here, if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly 
Ive worked with people like that, who juet get the job done and aren’t too worried about doing it well 
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That’s another story, and my pet peeve. It will be the reason I retire whenever that is.
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I finally got to sit down and watch the entire thing.
Here are my takeaways…
- Ringo is the only non-trouble maker, great work ethic, is the first one there every day, never complains. I had no idea. He always seems like a pompous arse these days when he is interviewed, maybe he is making up for lost time. Either way, seems like the nicest guy int the bunch.
- Amazing how much a hunk of tamborine on top of a high hat creates part of the Beatles sound.
- Billy Preston is a freaking awesome, insanely talented musician. But you mean to tell me there wasn’t a single foot of him actually speaking in all those hours? He is smiling and laughing all the time, having a blast, almost like he is watching his own personal Beatles show.
- Paul is a Mr. Bossy Pants.
- John is obnoxious, and brings out the obnoxious in Paul No wonder George was pissy.
- Yoko must be superb in the sack.
- What’s the deal with toast and marmalade?
- Bass VI sales are going to go through the roof.
- I love that they were recording ‘live, one take’, that is impressive and confirms what Adam Neely said in one of his videos…just cause we have a DAW, we shouldn’t always use a DAW, the imperfections give the music soul.
- I would have wanted to be the guy who banged the anvil in Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, great story for the grandkids, who, wouldn’t have cared in the least.
- I will never, ever again, beat myself up for taking so long to learn a song. They wrote the songs, and took what I would say was just as long to learn them well enough to play all the way through on one take.
- It is such a bummer that someone stole Paul’s bass and its still missing. I wonder if the BASSMAN sticker is still on it.
- I love that the Beatles, the freakin’ Beatles…have to ask for ‘better microphones’.
My two favorite quotes…
“It’s gonna be such an incredibly comical, silly thing in 50 years’ time: ‘They broke up because Yoko sat on an amp.’” - Paul
“I just farted. I wanted you to know.” - Ringo
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Man, seriously, my big takeaway was that anyone that still blames Yoko is a complete idiot. If anything she was a calming influence on John’s innate asshole.
That was one seriously dysfunctional band that happened to click together just enough. At least by that point. Yoko had nothing to do with it.
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Totally 1000%, even Paul knew then people would get it wrong, that is funny, feel bad for her. Then again, she has Beatles F-you money, so I doubt she ever cared.
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It’s hilarious because if you watch interviews of all of them later, she’s the mature, collected one. The others are relatively so by todays standards as well, though they do jab each other a bit. But she is clearly the one that has it together.
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Yoko must be superb in the sack.
I spat my coffee out! Great comment!
In all seriousness, though, she was nothing like the evil, disruptive influence over Lennon that we have been led to believe. Just her “art” was questionable.
What struck me was how very similar their approach/conversations/arguments were to we had in (basically “garage”) bands I was involved in some 10 years later. I didn’t see them as particularly dysfunctional, just driven.
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