Fifty years ago, The Beatles released the album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and took millions of listeners into a fantastical world. On Friday, you can take a virtual tour around the real world of iconic places that helped form the legacy of The Beatles on Google Earth.
Using its new Google Earth storytelling tool, Voyager, you are transported across the globe to nine different locations that represent pivotal moments in the Fab Four’s illustrious career. For some locations in the tour, you are automatically zoomed into a view of the street. Others, like New York City’s Ed Sullivan Theater, you will need to click on the Street View icon in the lower left-hand corner and then click on the location pin to zoom into the hallowed halls where The Beatles gave their first televised performance to 70 million viewers in 1964. All locations will have text on the side to explain the historical significance.
You will get a chance to move along the street in Liverpool, England, that inspired the song Penny Lane. You will be able to look around the stands at the Hollywood Bowl where the band performed twice in the 1960s to deafening cheers from raucous crowds. Those performances were so good they were recorded and released as the 1977 Beatles live album The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl.
There are more goodies in honor of Sgt. Peppers‘ anniversary. Multiple deluxe editions of the album are being reissued containing previously unreleased takes of all 13 songs. One of the standouts from the unreleased batch of outtakes is a beautiful instrumental version of Penny Lane. All of the original songs have also been given new stereo mixes produced by Giles Martin, son of the late Beatles producer, George Martin.
The deluxe editions are available now and are a definite must-have for any Beatles fanatic. You can click here and begin your tour of Beatles moments around the globe.
