Beatles in Birminham

Beatle fans waiting in the rain before the concert in Birmingham in 1964

Ringo and John walking into the Odeon

Another day of the tour for the Beatles as the moved onto Birmingham on October 11, 1964.    Here are some memories from those who experienced this performance:

I was 11 years old. My sister worked at the Odeon cinema in Birmingham. She would literally force me along to these weekly live events. But this evening was different — I sensed it. My instructions were to sit in the middle of the lower amphitheater and under no circumstances move from my allocated seat until the whole place had been emptied of people.

Mentally tied to my seat, suddenly the place became a seething mass of excited, screaming teenagers. The girls around me started quaking, changing from nice normal people into lunatics. The first acts dragged through their sets, then the company mimed the position and way the four members of the next band held their instruments. The place went wild. The girl near to me pulled at her hair, screaming and then as the curtains opened promptly fainted on the spot. Girls were being carried out; some only part-conscious or so overcome they had become hysterical.

The whole thing seemed over in a flash. By the end, the front six or seven rows of people had been removed in tears by the St John’s Ambulance. I went to many other festivals, concerts, but never have I experienced anything like that night.

Professor Marty St. James

Don't ask me how because we were right at the back, but for some strange reason we could hear them singing over all that screaming and it was a fantastic concert.  You could hear everything.  There were police in uniforms placed all along the wall upstairs, but the girls downstairs were trying to get up on the stage.  I couldn't believe that we could hear every word.  When the curtain came down at the end everyone was waiting for them to come back out and take their ovation, but when the curtains opened there were just their guitars on the stage.   John Harte (age 18 at the time)