Sunday, August 14, 2016

Cleveland concert memories






I saw the Beatles in concert on a rainy Sunday evening. I was 13 and my parents insisted on making it a "family outing" so there I was with my best friend, Tina, and Mom, Dad and my younger brother and sister all in tow. It was pretty embarrassing!
The rain had stopped just before the warm up acts. There were three, as I recall - Bobby Hebb ("Sunny"), The Cyrkle ("Red Rubber Ball") and the Ronettes. Nobody in the audience seemed to care. We wanted the Beatles.
There were about 25,000 people in the audience, all seated in the stands. The stage was set up on second base, so when The Beatles finally did come on, we had to use binoculars. We couldn't hear very well although we could tell what song they were singing above all the screaming (we did our share too).
I remember that The Beatles wore dark green suits and yellow shirts and we were kind of surprised that they weren't wearing ties.
The concert was very short by today's standards. They sang about 10 songs and half way through several hundred fans rushed the stage, forcing security to get The Beatles off the stage and stop the concert until everyone sat down again. We waited for what seemed an eternity for The Beatles to come back, but they finally did, and a half-hour later it was all over. We couldn't believe it -- we had really seen them!-Rozy 

 "The date was August 14th 1966. This date is indelibly etched in my mind. On this date I saw the Beatles at Cleveland's old Municipal Stadium. The trip to Cleveland was memorable in itself. The bus we were riding in broke down on  the way to the show, on the Ohio Turnpike. I had won the tickets from KQV Radio 1410, and we just barely made it in time to see the Fab Four. We had already missed seeing the Cyrkle, but no one seemed to mind. I was on a bus full of screaming girls, I think there may have been 1 other boy on the bus, and all we wanted see was the legendary Beatles! We got there and about 10 minutes later the concert started. the Beatles were brought into the stadium in an armored car through the center field fence. The stage was set on 2nd base and 6' fences lined the field down the foul ball lines. Murray the K introduced them and then all chaos broke loose!! I have never, to this day, heard that kind of noise. The decibel level was so high that you could barely hear a word they were singing. There were people fainting and being taken out on stretchers the entire show. About 20 minutes into the show the band started to play the first notes to their famous song "Day Tripper" . A girl ran up to the 6' fence and started to climb up and almost over the fence until she was pulled back down. By that time more and more people had run up to and knocked down the fences and when it was all over 10,000 people had stormed the stage. The Beatles were taken off the stage on the same armored truck that had brought them in.  Murray the K said that if people did not go back to their seats the show would be over. About  45 minutes later the crowd got back to their seats and the concert was resumed. It's easy to see why the Beatles gave up live shows. First was the sound quality and secondly the security problem. I salute KQV for the chance to see the Beatles and as you can see, I will forever cherish the moment in time."  - George
 




1 comment:

  1. BEATLES CSI: The performer's hand reaching out to a fan in the first photo is not that of a Beatle, but of a 'Remain's' band member. Lennon & Harrison played Epiphone Casinos on this tour which had unbound headstocks and slanted block neck inlays. Barry (of The Remains) used an Epiphone Al Caiola model shown clearly in the photo with it's bound headstock and straight block inlays. The Remains were also on the bill that night.

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