Flashback: Lights out for the Beatles.

The Beatles’ last paid concert ever took place a half-century ago Monday. The amazing thing: It wasn’t a sellout. The Fab Four played in San Francisco’s Candlestick Park in front of 25,000 fans and 17,500 empty seats.

The lads from Liverpool were exhausted. The Beatles had worked their collective butts off and turned themselves into the world’s most popular musical group only to find their every move dogged by fans, their every utterance picked apart by critics and their every song a golden egg. Careers were made and unmade around the Beatles (prime examples: New York disc jockey Murray the K and Beatles manager Brian Epstein, respectively). After John Lennon wryly noted that the Beatles had become “bigger than Jesus,” critics in the U.S. Bible Belt held giant record-burning bonfires and called in so many threats that the band’s Memphis show was nearly canceled. When the Beatles’ manager declined an invitation for the group to meet Philippines first lady Imelda Marcos, the entire nation took offense. The Beatles’ road managers were kicked and beaten. The group wasn’t allowed to leave the country until it paid a handsome penalty. The Beatles played Japan and then headed back to England for a little rest. George Harrison quipped: “We’re going to have a couple of weeks to recuperate before we go and get beaten up by the Americans.” Everyone laughed except the Beatles themselves. So the Beatles crossed the Atlantic in August 1966 for their third major U.S. tour in three years. They had already agreed — but not yet admitted to the public — that this would be their last road trip: Nineteen shows in 14 cities over 18 days across the U.S. and Canada.

Unlike the group’s triumphant 1964 and 1965 visits, the 1966 tour was nearly a disaster. Promoters booked the lads into sports arenas in hopes of matching the success of the 1965 Shea Stadium show. But most of the performances didn’t sell out and some were threatened by bad weather. The Cincinnati show had to be postponed until the next day after the Beatles’ road manager was badly shocked tending to the band‘s equipment in the rain. Epstein’s briefcase had been stolen during the group’s stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Inside was $20,000 in cash, concert contracts and a certain amount of drugs. The police found the suitcase — minus half the cash — in the possession of Epstein’s partner. Epstein elected not to press charges, knowing the press would expose both his drug use and his homosexuality. The venue — Candlestick Park, home of the San Francisco Giants — could hold 42,500 fans. Only 25,000 showed up. While they waited to go on, the group jammed in their dressing room with folk singer Joan Baez. Paul McCartney asked PR man Tony Barrow to record the Beatles’ last concert on a simple cassette tape recorder. The tape — which has been bootlegged over the years — ends in the middle of the final song, “Long Tall Sally.” The previous night at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, the crowd had kept the Beatles trapped in their dressing room for two hours after their show. This time, the group was whisked away in an armored car. “That’s it,” Harrison said as he got in. “I’m not a Beatle anymore.” When the Beatles arrived in London on Aug. 31, someone asked Paul McCartney what he planned to do now. “Sleep,” he said. The group went on to take three months off. McCartney scored a movie. Lennon played a bit part in a movie. Harrison traveled to India to study the sitar. Ringo Starr spent time with his family. When they reconvened in November, the Beatles began work on what would become “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”