Welcome to Nothing's Real a podcast about the Beatles.

Everybody thinks they know the Beatles, but how much do we really know?

My name is Jason Carty.

My name is Stephen Corkroft. And we are live on tape from Dublin and

Belfast. At the end of 1991, while the world was rocking out to Nirvana's never mind in

U-two's new direction, a certain George Harrison decided to go back out on tour, but only in Japan,

and doing it with his ex-husband-in-law, Eric Clapton in tow as

well. What could have been the start of a whole new way of doing things for George, instead

essentially ended up becoming the last part of his active, public-facing solo career.

It's, yeah, it should have been a new beginning, the gigs in Japan, shouldn't it?

It should, I think with hindsight, you could see that this could have been the start of him

reclaiming his legacy and the Beatles' legacy in the way that Paul sort of did. Essentially, Paul

started this in two years earlier in 1989. So George could have followed exactly the same path.

Yeah, and it was only 12 gigs, and I am of an age where I remember these gigs happening and being announced.

So I'm pretty certain by the end of 1991 I'm reading The Beatles Monthly.

There's no internet that we know of, so you're kind of just reading the news that you can get.

But if you look at the sequence of events, you know, he'd had a successful 87 with Cloud 9.

He had a successful 88 with the Wilburys.

He had a successful 89 appearing with Tom Petty and putting out his dark horse greatest hits.

He had a successful 1990 Wilburys volume 3.

And it seemed to me as a teenager at the time, well, this was normal.

George was just being an active rock star.

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