‘We love Beatles,’ 200 Girls Shriek
By Gabriel Favoino
With the reverence formerly reserved for Popes and kings,
200 teenaged girls milled around Astor and Goethe Thursday night shrieking “the
Beatles!” The girls also shrieked on
command for more than 50 press representatives, television cameramen and
newspaper photographers.
Even two first-classmen from the Coast Guard Academy at New
London, Conn. Were there.
“We just saw the crowd and stopped. We don’t know what it’s all about,” said John
Curran, of Minneapolis.
Near them stood a fat girl in shorts, her eyes glued to
binoculars, thinking she was looking at the floor on which the Beatles are
staying in the Astor Towers Hotel. In
fact, the Beatles were in the hotel, at a press conference. But they don’t live there. With uncommon secrecy, the Beatles are
hidden at the Ascot Motel, 1100 S. Michigan.
They are to perform in a concert here in the International Amphitheatre
Friday evening.
Outside the Amphitheatre, a girl who borrowed $35 to come
here from Mauston, Wis. Marched with a sign saying, “I love the Beatles.” She said she had only eaten a peanut butter
sandwich all day, and had written 64 songs for the Beatles.
Meanwhile, back at the Astor Towers, four girls from Kansas
City and St. Louis were hoping to meet the musical group. One wore a button saying “I love John.” Another carried a banned reading “We love the
Beatles.” Her companion had a
hand-lettered sign pinned to her chest saying the same thing.
Upstairs, at the press conference, reporters applauded as
the Beatles sat down on imperial looking high-backed chairs.
An English reporter, with a hair-do resembling that of
Thomas Becket, kneeled, as at an altar, with microphone in hand. He asked if the Beatles thought their music
was getting any better. They replied
they thought it was.
Outside, Jean Crusoe, 15, was one of the 50 teenagers
storming the hotel’s freight elevator in an attempt to get upstairs and meet
their idols. Jean got lacerations of the
head when the elevator doors closed on her.
She was taken to Henrotin Hospital for treatment.
Upstairs the Beatles were denying that they were better than
Jesus, or Christianity. At the press
conference, Beatle John Lennon added, “I suppose if I had said television was
more popular than Jesus I would have gotten away with it. I am sorry I opened my mouth.”
A world-wide sensation ensued with Lennon was quoted as
saying the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ.
In fact, it was reported that the Pan American World
Airlines plane that brought the musicians here form England would have Bibles
for them all. This, they denied.
But when they landed Thursday afternoon in Chicago, their
plane was diverted to a little used maintenance hangar. Airline employees said teenage girls later
got into the plane and stole the earphones the Beatles had used on the
flight. They even took the pillow where
they rested their heads.
When the musicians left London, a crowd of hysterical girls
chanted, “John, not Jesus…John not Jesus…John, not Jesus.”
Asked at the press conference what the reason for their
immense popularity is, Beatle Paul McCartney replied: “We don’t know. We really don’t know.”
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