A very rare Canadian recording of The Beatles live in concert is on the market.

It dates from August, 1965 and was recorded off the mixing desk from an afternoon concert at Maple Leaf Gardens, then a huge ice hockey arena in Toronto.

The two reel-to-reel tapes appear to be the only audio record of the gig in existence, and its sound quality is markedly better than most other Beatle bootlegs.

Well-known Beatle collector and historian Piers Hemmingsen (below), author of the highly-regarded book The Beatles In Canada (which traces the early days of Beatlemania in that country in forensic detail), owns the tapes and wants to use them to fund publication of his next volume, telling the story of the band in Canada up to 1970.

Journalist Ludovic Hunter-Tilney is one of the few people who have heard the recording and he writes about it glowingly in The Financial Times. “The sound quality is raw but the music comes across strongly, especially Lennon and McCartney’s vocals,” he says. “The vigour and accuracy of their singing are striking. Meanwhile, George Harrison firmly strums his guitar and Ringo Starr keeps matters moving at the drum kit.”

Hemmingsen took the tapes to Apple back in 2015, playing them to none other than Giles Martin at Abbey Road Studios. Back then they was deemed too low quality and they passed on a sale, but since that time Hemmingsen has discovered he’d been playing the tapes on the wrong type of machine. Listening back on a half-track player was a revelation. “It was like day and night,” he says.

Add to that the potential now to treat the audio using the new MAL audio technology developed by Peter Jackson’s film production company and who knows how good the result could be.

Check out the full story in Hunter-Tilney’s article here.