“That’s it,” he says over lunch on the seventh day of tense rehearsals being captured on film. “See you ’round the clubs.” Then he walks out of the meeting and out of the band he joined at age fourteen.

John isn’t rattled. “I think if George doesn’t come back by Monday or Tuesday, we ask Eric Clapton to play in it,” he suggests. It’s not an entirely out-of-the-blue idea; in early September, George had invited Clapton to play on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” as part of the White Album sessions. “The point is, if George leaves, do we want to carry on the Beatles? I do. We should just get other members and carry on.”

George quits on January 10, 1969. He returns on January 15. But he’s still dead set against touring.

On January 29, a location for the concert scene still hasn’t been chosen. Then it hits them, all of them. “What a great idea it would be to play on the roof—play to the whole of the West End,” John says, with a knowing look to Ringo and a mischievous smile to Lindsay-Hogg.

The city of London is in for a surprise.

At one o’clock on the afternoon of Thursday, January 30, 1969, Apple executives are given short notice to report to the rooftop of 3 Savile Row. Engineers haul up a river of electric cables while carpenters build a makeshift stage.

John and the others go over the set list. We haven’t played live together in almost four years. John’s nervous as hell.

The others are, too. He can see it in their eyes.

“I don’t want to go,” George says.

“What’s the point?” Ringo adds.

John makes the final decision. He borrows a fur coat from Yoko, adjusts his glasses, and climbs the stairs from the dressing room to the rooftop.

Wind whips off the Thames, and it’s too dangerous for a helicopter to provide aerial shots. Filmmakers will have to divide the shoot into a series of close-ups of the band and reaction shots from the crowd gathering on the street.

Though his hands feel “too cold to play the chords,” John grabs his guitar and sees the familiar face of Billy Preston. The American R&B keyboardist the Beatles met while touring with Little Richard in 1962 has been sitting in with the band on electric piano.

Ken Mansfield holds four lit cigarettes toward George to allow the lead guitarist to warm his fingertips.

They tear into the opening number, “Get Back.”

Curious passersby stop dead in their tracks in front of the building. They crane their necks and point to the sky.

That’s right, John wants to tell them. The Beatles are giving you a free concert, their first concert since Candlestick in 1966, right above your heads.