Wednesday, January 22, 2025

"Great or Grate? - It Depends"




 

Great or Grate? It Depends

By Gay Stilley/Joy Stilley

 (AP story)

February 13, 1964


Editor's Note, Joy Stilley and her daughter, Gay, 13, watched the Beatles and their fans. They saw things differently:

Gay's story:

     The whole thing was just too much. After seeing the Beatles Wednesday night at Carnegie Hall, I'm still in a daze. My throat is out of commission from screaming. I'm completely drained of emotion.  

   Well, not completely. I'm still wildly enthusiastic about the Beatles, who were fantastic, even if some middle-aged reviewers might say "noisy" was a more appropriate word. Along with all the other teenagers, I was screaming, clapping, and stamping my feet.

     They sang with such enthusiasm that you sometimes could hear them even above the screams of the crowd. They've got so much personality that, somehow, it just oozes out into the audience. They beamed out into the audience as if they were having a great time and were glad to be there. Everyone in the audience beamed back at them; at least the ones with enough strength left did.

     I think it's ridiculous to say that without their crazy clothes and haircuts, The Beatles would be nowhere. But it's true that these things do add somewhat to their charm. 

    For part of the show, I was sitting at the side of the stage, where I had a terrific view of the backs of their heads. It was great. Every time they started shaking and shimmying, their hair fell in ripples down the back of their neck. It isn't every girl who gets to see that. They sang all of their most popular songs, including their two top US hits. Of course, sometimes it was pretty hard to tell which songs they were singing above the roar of the crowd, but all it took was a little lip reading. When they sang the more lively ones, the audience went wild. The people were actually twisting and shouting.

     So if you read any unfavorable reviews of the Beatles, ignore them and bear in mind that they were written by doddering middle-age adults who don't understand the Beatles and shouldn't even try to. The Beatles are strictly for teenagers. And all we can say is We Love Them. Yeah yeah yeah yeah!


Joy's Story:

    There never was a concert before in Carnegie Hall like the one England's Beatles put on Wednesday night. Never have so many screeched so loud. The stage, which was lit up constantly by the flashbulbs of picture-taking fans, was patrolled throughout the program by uniformed guards.

     A large segment of the audience was seated on the stage. The music was about as loud as it is possible for music to be but not quite loud enough to be heard above the frantic clapping, screaming, and seat-bouncing activities of the Beatle lovers, not by any means all teenagers.

     Bedlam was a general rule throughout the time the long-haired rock and rollers were performing, but each time a member of the foursome announced the number to be played, the din went up a few decibels. 

    The enthusiasm of the Beatlemaniacs extended even to the local disc jockeys. They received their share of high-pitched yelps when they brought on the boys they had popularized. The show left its audience with sore hands, raw throats, spots in their eyes, fractured eardrums, and smiling faces.

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