According to this, the Beatles setlist at their last paid concert in San Francisco on August 29, 1966, opened with *Rock and Roll Music * and closed with Long Tall Sally.
What does it say about them that they both opened and closed their concert with songs that were not written by them?
They liked those songs a lot.
That they loved the music.
In 1966, the setlist for most British bands was filled with American blues, r&b, rock ‘n’ rock, rockabilly, and b-sides to obscure semi-hits. That was the norm. Any history of rock shows that playing all originals was a concept that came later, partially because groups like the Beatles could fill entire sets with great hits of their own. The Beatles covered many of these songs, they played almost nothing but those songs when they were developing as a band, and they still loved the songs. So they covered them in concert, just like the Stones and other bands did, and continue to do.
What else do you think it meant? Seriously, there’s another answer to this question?
I see Chuck read my mind while I was composing a longer post than his.
As recently as the 1965 “Beatles for Sale” album, half the songs they recorded were covers. That album featured 2 Carl Perkins tunes, a Chuck Berry tune, a Wilbert Harrison tune… remember that the Beatles started out as a cover band!
They probably wanted to start and end with songs most familiar to the audience.
By '66, their own songs would have been just as (if not more) familiar to the audience than the covers. The only real answer has already been given: they loved those songs.
Those were the two raunchiest songs on the list. Maybe they wanted to start and end with a bang. I wanna Be Your Man is the only one of their own tunes that would compete in that department, but it was sung by Ringo, so…I don’t know.
What gets me about the list is that it’s only about 30-40 minutes worth of playing. Cheap bastards. They were only in it for the money. 
Huh. I thought the last setlist* was something like,
* Get Back
* Don't Let Me Down
* I've Got A Feeling
* One After 909
* Dig A Pony
* Get Back
*a free show, so I guess it doesn’t count 
I’m not sure exactly when things changed and people began to expect rock artists to perform 90+ minute sets, but in the early days of rock & roll, there were usually a LOT of artists touring together, and most of the time, they played only the A & B sides of their latest single.
The Beatles’ set from 1966 looks awfully short to us today, but to fans who were used to the old-fashioned “barnstorming” tours, it may have seemed like a fairly LONG set.
Most Beatles concerts were about a half-hour. That’s what was expected back then.
Thanks everyone. Great answers. While it seems strange to me now that they would start and end their concerts with cover songs, I guess it wasn’t unusual back in the day and they probably really did like those two songs.
Also ticket prices were lower. The average cost of a ticket was close to the average cost of an album. That doesn’t seem to be true anymore.
No, it’s not… but then, in the Beatles’ day, a concert tour was intended to promote sales of a new record.
Today, when fewer people are bothering to buy recordings, an artist or band has to charge much more for concert tickets to make the same money.
Touring was a heck of a lot cheaper then as well.
Bands drove places in buses - vans when they started out - instead of chartered jets. There were no elaborate sets that cost a million before the show started. They used the PA systems of the local joint rather than bringing their own million dollar systems. All that meant they could get away with “a” roadie, not 100-person teams. They didn’t have hairdressers and yoga instructors and backup dancers and lighting technicians and breathing coaches. Maybe just a guy that carried cocaine in his briefcase.
If your expenses are $10,000 a show then ticket prices can be $3.00 per person. If they are $1,000,000 per show, then they can’t.
It might also be pointed out that, by the time of that concert, they had long since ceased to think of live shows as being anything but a charade. At many shows, they could barely hear themselves and most of the audience could barely hear what they were playing… also, a lot of the songs they were writing at that point either couldn’t be reproduced on stage or wouldn’t have gone over well… at least, if anyone could have heard them.
Okay, that explains it. That was before my concert-going days. And in case there was any misunderstanding, I was joking about them being cheap bastards. I’m a major Beatles fan.
Sad, but true.
Which makes it curious that at that last show they played zero songs from their new album.
I suspect that recording sales has very little to do with ticket prices. Nor tour expenses. If the record industry had a full recovery (illegal downloads disappeared) and tour expenses dropped, ticket prices would stay the same.
For most artists, concert tours are still to promote the recorded music. There are maybe 25 groups at any given time that are making money from touring; the rest are hard pressed to make money on the tour itself.