Mark and Colleen Hayward/Redferns
A short clip of The Beatles‘ only live performance on the legendary U.K. TV series Top of the Pops, which was long believed to be lost, has been discovered in Mexico, BBC News reports.
The 11-second silent snippet captures the Fab Four miming a performance of “Paperback Writer” on a June 1966 episode of the music program. The clip, which was shot on eight-millimeter film off of a TV set by a family from Liverpool, U.K., made its way to a collector in Mexico. That collector, in turn, contacted the Birmingham, U.K.-based non-profit organization Kaleidoscope, which focuses on locating lost TV footage.
“I think if you’re a Beatles fans, it’s the holy grail,” Kaleidoscope’s Chris Perry tells the BBC of the segment. “People thought it was gone forever because videotape wasn’t kept in 1966. To find it all these years later was stunning.”
The Beatles clip is one of many highlights of a special screening event organized by Kaleidoscope called Music Believed Wiped that will be shown at the BFI Southbank theater in London on April 20.
Among the other rediscovered clips that will be part of the screening are a 1969 Top of the Pops episode featuring an early cut of the promo film for The Beatles’ hit “Something,” and a 1972 clip from the program capturing Elton John singing his classic song, “Rocket Man.”
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