Beat Beat Beat was a German TV show that ran from 1966 to 1969. Music fans might be familiar with Beat Club, but that was a different show, out of Bremen, that lasted into the early 1970s. According to the enthusiastic Sam Leighty, Beat Beat Beat was run by a company out of Frankfurt but “broadcast from and videotaped in” Hamburg. Beat Beat Beat also featured had a radio simulcast on the Armed Forces Network. (Update: knowledgeable DM reader DJones clarifies in comments that the show was taped in Offenbach, a town near Frankfurt.) As with all such programming, the target audience was both the children of armed forces personnel as well as native Germans, and the on-air personalities tended to reflect that, mixing American and German hosts.
The show seemed to specialize in British invasion bands, such as the Animals and the Hollies, but also working in an act like the Jimi Hendrix Experience when the opportunity arose. This Kinks performance was broadcast in Germany on January 7, 1966 but had been taped the previous December. Data is a little scarce, but IMDb lists this Kinks appearance as the first edition of the show, and to judge from the amateurish camera positioning and so forth, I wouldn’t be very surprised if that turned out to be true. Other acts that appeared on Beat Beat Beat included the Small Faces, the Yardbirds, the Move, the Creation, and Manfred Mann. The show tended to mix U.S. or U.K. bands with German bands doing similar music—thus, a later episode of the program featured a German band with the marvelous name of The Kentuckys.
As Leighty reports, “For increments of 45 minutes to 55 minutes, it was all broadcast live in excellent black and white in a studio that probably accommodated 1200 people. There was bleacher-like seating with a dance floor. The audience seemed to consist of German teenagers ranging from 14 to 18 years old.” This video certainly seems to accord with that description. The Kinks are in fine form here, injecting familiar bluesy rock of the British Invasion with their own distinctive energy.
There are inexpensive DVDs you can buy of Beat Beat Beat rock performances. This Kinks performance is available at Amazon, as well as DVDs featuring Cat Stevens/Herman’s Hermits, the Move/the Searchers, Eric Burdon and the New Animals, the Troggs, and the Yardbirds.
Setlist:
A Well-Respected Man
Milk Cow Blues
Till the End of the Day
I’m a Lover, Not a Fighter
You Really Got Me
In some sources the second track is mis-identified as “Oh Please,” but it’s definitely “Milk Cow Blues.”