The Beatles Fans were So Genteel (Newcastle 1965)

 

The Beatles Fans Were So Genteel

By  A Sunday Sun Reporter

Sunday Sun

December 5, 1965

     50 policemen stood outside the City Hall, Newcastle, last night. Inside the hall, two dozen ushers waited for girls to make a rush for the stage, and St John Ambulance men waited to carry off unconscious girls. But it never happened. 

    The 2,500 fans who packed into the hall to see the first Beatles concert in Newcastle in two years screamed themselves hoarse, but the expected chaos didn't come. 

    The concertgoers dutifully showed their tickets to policemen, thus gaining entry to Northumberland Road; the queues filed quietly into the hall. 

    Excitement and impatience grew during the supporting acts, and here and there, choruses of "We want the Beatles" hit the air. There were screams every time a door opened. The stage seemed set for pandemonium, but only the screaming brought back memories of the old Beatlemania. 

    The Beatles sang for 30 minutes, often losing out to the bigger noise in the auditorium, but the ushers and ambulance men just looked bored. One earned his pay by telling a girl who was hanging precariously over the gallery rail to sit down. Another by telling a girl not to hang banners over the rail. But otherwise it was the most ordinary, big star concert at the hall for several months, a Sunday school party compared to the last Rolling Stones concert. 

     Mr. Tony Barrow, publicity officer, said afterwards, "It's obvious, the fans are starting to listen to the songs instead of just wanting to grab the boys and scream. That's just spontaneous."  But a policeman, shivering on a futile guard duty, had another opinion on it. "The big hysteria is over, man," he said, "The Beatles are popular, but it's not as mad as it used to be."