Anyone who ever tries to compare their favourite band to The Beatles is already fighting a losing battle. Even though many of rock’s heavyweights have managed to make music that at least equalled what the Fab Four could do, the rabid fanbase surrounding albums like Sgt Peppers and Abbey Road is most likely never going to be surpassed by any casual rock fan. In terms of performance ability, though, Paul McCartney thought that there was no denying this showman next to their concerts.

Because looking through their history, The Beatles’ track record for live performances tends to fluctuate. Despite starting when they were still in their teens, John Lennon and McCartney learned quickly about the need to entertain an audience whenever they found themselves on the streets of Hamburg, usually playing for hours on end and finding new ways to twist their songs into something different.

When the band finally got major success around the time of Please Please Me, though, their concerts became more of a spectacle than they bargained for. They had started to be viewed as musical gods by many people, and even if the shows did get dangerous during their ‘bigger than Jesus’ backlash, they still found time to remain professional and perform their songs even when people were clawing at them.

But having that natural knack for performance wasn’t something that happened by accident. When first honing their craft, they always went back to the glory days of Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry for their stage gimmicks, but even by the standards of people like Little Richard, no one else could touch what James Brown brought to the table.

The moniker of the hardest-working man in show business wasn’t there by accident, and when Brown came out to perform, it was impossible for anyone to take their eyes off him. From the sequinned suits he would wear to the massive screams he could pull off, The Beatles seemed like amateur choirboys half the time that a song like ‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag’ started up at one of his concerts.

Although Macca claims that his band took things one step further, there was no doubt that Brown had them completely outmatched when he performed, saying, “The Beatles were a shit hot band. We were very, very good. OK, stack us up against James Brown, record for record, he’s definitely hotter because he’s James Brown. But he didn’t do the stuff we did. He’s James Brown, and he’s sodding fantastic.”

Alluding to what McCartney said there, though, The Beatles made up for that performance ability by turning in some of the most engaging music on record. While there were bound to be limits on how intense James Brown could be, nothing was off the table when the Fab Four started shattering the boundaries for the studio like on Sgt Peppers or began veering in different directions on The White Album.

Being a live band was only one of The Beatles’ strengths, and once they came off the road, it was clear where their heart was. There was no sense in competing with James Brown, so it was time for them to go off into an entirely different medium.