Three tunes into his 2 1/2-hour extravaganza at Tokyo Dome on Nov. 11, Sir Paul McCartney introduced a "song that's never been played live until this year. The thing is, if you don't tour, then when you record a song, that's the last time you ever sing it." He then launched into the simple, unmistakable chords of "Getting Better."

Until the death of John Lennon, a sizable portion of the world's population expected an eventual Beatles reunion, and even after Lennon's murder, there were many who thought the three remaining members would bury the hatchet and hit the road. They didn't stop dreaming until a year ago, when George Harrison died.

I never gave it a second thought. But on hearing "Getting Better," which lost none of its punchy charm in the cavernous Dome, I realized what The Beatles missed when they stopped touring in 1966. As a live act, they predated the "rock concert." They were a club band who instantly morphed into a phenomenon, and in either incarnation, concerts were never more than a dozen songs rattled off in rapid succession. Legend has it that the group quit playing live because they could no longer hear one another and were deteriorating as musicians.