Fans dreamed of a Beatles reunion long after they broke up in 1970. They came close to getting one a few times over the years. The Fab Four almost attended Eric Clapton and Pattie Boyd’s wedding in 1979. However, one couldn’t make it.
On May 19, 1979 a select group of party-goers witnessed the closest thing to a live Beatles reunion when Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr reunited to jam at Eric Clapton’s wedding reception at his English estate. The impromptu performance marked the first time the three former-Beatles had played in public together since the group's final performance on the Apple Rooftop on January 30, 1969.
Clapton had married Harrison’s ex-wife Pattie Boyd, and set up an outdoor stage for a mammoth jam session which featured the three ex-Beatles, a reformed Cream, the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger and Bill Wyman, Elton John, David Bowie, members of Clapton’s band Cream and Denny Laine, from McCartney’s band Wings.
Although the three former “Fabs” also took part in a makeshift sing-a-long jam at Starr’s wedding in 1981, the Clapton wedding reception marks the only time that the former Beatles made music onstage in a somewhat professional manner. Among the many songs reported to have been performed that day were the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Get Back.”
John Lennon was not performing with them that night for unknown reasons which, it has to be said, may well just be down to him being based in America and was unable to come back for the wedding. Unfortunately, it meant it would just be The Threetles who performed at the wedding but it was still a landmark event nonetheless.
During an interview for Harper’s Bazaar in 2018, Taylor Swift talked with Boyd about how a Beatles reunion could have happened at Boyd and Clapton’s wedding in 1979.
“For me, one of the most heartbreaking moments in the book is when, years later, you and Eric get married, and George and his new wife, Olivia, come to the wedding party, Paul comes, Ringo comes, but John couldn’t go,” Swift told Boyd. “He said later that he would have loved to come. That night there was a huge jam session, and had he been there it would have been the last time the Beatles played together.”
“Can you imagine? I was heartbroken,” Boyd said. “John felt he couldn’t come because he thought if he left America they wouldn’t let him back in, and it was important for him to be in America.”
Both Clapton and Boyd published their memoirs in 2008 and spoke about their decade long marriage. Boyd says that upon looking at her relationship with Clapton decades after their split, she ultimately regrets leaving Harrison for him: “I don’t want to totally blame Eric, but I think his behavior was wrong — was morally wrong to entice me to leave George, because I was married to George and I really shouldn't have done that. But also, I was wrong as well to allow myself to be flattered (by Eric) to that extent. So, y’know we both were wrong morally on that moral issue.”
Eric Clapton and Pattie Boyd divorced in 1988. She stayed in close contact with Harrison until his death in 2001 — but has no ongoing relationship with Clapton.
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