After Carnegie Hall

"Owners, bouncers, cops, and patrons meet the Beatles (well, a couple of them anyway) at the Headliner Club in New York as they attempt to have a night out on the town after their Carnegie Hall shows."

"But the Beatles' fun night out is interrupted when, despite all the professional muscle in evidence, this overly-aggressive young lady breaks through.  Ringo seems less than amused!"

 

Life With The Beatles (Part 3) - Bewitched, Bothered, Besieged (1964)

 

Life with the Beatles

Bewitched, Bothered, Besieged

By George Harrison

Liverpool Echo

February 27, 1964

    With the sound of that wonderful Washington Coliseum audience's fantastic reception still making their ears tingle, Ringo put it this way, "I wanted it to go on and on. I could feel the screams going right through me."

    

     The Beatles rushed back to the hotel and changed into more formal clothes for the so called charity ball at the British Embassy. It wasn't really a ball in the accepted sense. Two or three times each year the ambassador's wife, Lady Ormsby-Gore (She is now Lady Harlieh, as her husband, Sir David Ormsby- Gore has since succeeded to the family title.) has arranged dance parties for the Embassy staff and their friends, British and American.

     As usual on this occasion, she charged only $5 (about £1 15s) a ticket, which included buffet and drinks.  And she devoted the proceeds to one of her favorite good causes, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The 200 tickets she had optimistically printed were snapped up immediately as they became available. A veteran member of the staff told me, as he looked at the packed dance floor. "We've never had such a crowd in all the years I've been here, not even for Sir Winston."

     As the night wore on, things became more merry than one would normally associate with a staid Embassy party, and many of the younger guests let their hair down. The Beatles found themselves constantly being cornered by dinner jacketed men and their evening gown wives demanding, rather than requesting autographs. John Lennon in an aside to me commented, "This lot must have big families. I've signed hundreds of autographs, but everyone says, 'oh, it's not for me. Of course,  I couldn't care less, old boy, but my children asked me to get you to sign. You know?'"

     Hemmed in at every turn by jostling men and women to such an extent that sometimes they could scarcely raise glasses to their lips, John, Paul, Ringo, and George took it all in good part, although once or twice, I detected signs of anger in John when he thought they were being pushed around too much. On each occasion, it was Ringo who stepped in quickly to act as peacemaker. Then he too became somewhat annoyed as one of the laughing guests milling around him suddenly produced a small pair of nail scissors and clipped off a bit of his hair at the back of his neck. 

    Since we have been back to England, I have noted that the foreign secretary in a house of commons replied to questions, has denied that this incident occurred. You have my word for it, Mr. Butler, it most certainly did! Several of us saw it. If you need any confirmation, just ask Ringo. 

    The Embassy party followed the excitement of the Coliseum left the boys tired out, and they slipped on next morning until drug out of their beds to make a quick trip around Washington's historic places for photographs to be taken. They had decided to return by train to New York, although the snow had ceased and the aircrafts were able to use Washington airport in the normal way. But as I knew, that February 12 was Abraham Lincoln's birthday celebrated by all New York schools closing. I thought I'd do better to fly on ahead of them to see what was happening in the city, where the boys were to perform two concerts in the evening at the famous Carnegie Hall.

     I arrived in New York about noon and made for our venerable Plaza Hotel. It was in  a state of siege. The biggest mob of teenage girls we had so far encountered surrounded it. A sergeant told me, "The kids started arriving just after sun up, and they've been pouring in ever since. It's a school holiday, of course, and that explains it."

     Reinforced police barricades confided most of the fans to the square opposite the Plaza's main entrance. Every window overlooking the Plaza entrance was filled with onlookers for this was New York's strangest free spectacle for years, and nobody wanted to miss it. 

    Then the news was announced on the radio that The Beatles were returning by train due to Pennsylvania Station at 4pm. This was the starting signal for a rush by hundreds of girls aboard busses for Penn Station. They were soon joined by more than 1000 others who had flocked back to the station from LaGuardia Airport, where they had been awaiting the boys expected arrival by plane. Railway officials flashed an emergency call for help to the city police, and 100 men, including mounted officers, were transferred at once to the rail terminal to deal with the situation which threatened to get completely out of hand when the Beatles train drew in.

     Every gate was closed bearing access to the platform. Bewildered passengers off incoming trains were shepherded by police to other exits, and all the time, the girls kept up an air splitting, high pitched shriek, which numbed your senses. The four targets for all this commotion were in a special coach at the rear of the Washington train, waiting the word that it would be safe for them to get out. 

    Paul told me later, "We could hear the yelling before the train even stopped. What a row!" At last, officials decided they could probably smuggle the lads out by way of another platform. The coach was  shunted off but the girls were not easily fooled. They spotted the ruse and dashed around to the new exit. Hefty policemen went down under the mad rush by something like 2,000 screaming kids intent on getting near their idols. John, Paul, George, and Ringo started running and  following the railway officials in a dash for a mail bag service entrance.

     With the mob chasing full pelt after them, they got through the gate, which was slammed behind them and locked,stopping the girls in their tracks. Hastily, the boys piled into two taxis that made a rendezvous en route to the hotel with their own hired limousine in which they finished the journey to the Plaza. Their arrival fired off the excited waiting youngsters into a surge through the barricades to reach the car. The sweating, heaving police just managed to hold on long enough for the Beatles to get a few seconds of grace and escape into the hotel before the crowd reached the entrance doors, which were promptly bolted. Inside the Plaza, security guards hired by the management, patrolled every quarter, winkling out kids who had sneaked through the blockade somehow or another. 

    And so we moved across the to historic Carnegie Hall, opening its doors for the first time in 75 years to the beat from Mercyside. The Beatles were smuggled out of the Plaza via the kitchen and an underground employee entrance leading to a quiet street unwatched by fans. The taxi whipped them to the stage door, taking by surprise the 2,000 girls and boys without tickets who were waiting at both ends of the street ready to pounce, expecting them to arrive in their black limousine. The girls gave the battered taxi no more than a glance and the boys were out of it and inside the stage door before they were spotted.

     The towering height of Carnegie Hall's vast, 5,000 seat auditorium, seen from the stage with the balconies rising way up until folks sitting there look like midgets, is a pretty overpowering sight. I know for I was sitting on the stage behind the Beatles who kept turning around to shout quaint comments in my direction throughout the show. A couple of 100 customers who had paid top price of around two guineas for the privilege were also occupying the stage seats. You can also add half a dozen of those inevitable police and security men. They were presumably on the spot, in case we got up to mischief.

     Somehow, out in the packed, huge hall, the Beat-chicks really had a ball. They yelled, they yah- hooed, they squealed. They hardly ever seemed to sit down, and they hung along the plush balconies, hand painted signs reading, "We Love You" and "Beatles stay forever". 

    An elderly Carnegie Hall official said to me, "Do your audiences in England behave like this when the Beatles appear?" I assured him that they did, and he shook his head, sighing, "Extraordinary, truly extraordinary! Never seen anything like it."

     Afterward, the promoter of the show, Theater Three productions, announced that they would offer the Beatles a return engagement in a Carnegie Hall next September. In the audience and enjoying all the excitement were such interesting people as Mrs. Nelson Rockefeller, wife of New York's millionaire governor, with her two children, film actress Lauren Bacall, and Sybil Burton, ex wife of actor Richard Burton.  She admitted  to being a Beatle fan from way back.

     After the show, Mrs. Rockefeller enthused, "It was one of the most extraordinary things I've ever seen. I loved it. They were marvelous." But women newspaper comments Inez Robb, who has a very big following for her syndicated articles, wasn't so happy. She wrote, "This nation, hard pressed on all sides, cannot long endure the squealing syndrome that seizes U.S. adolescents and the presence of the Beatles. Beatlemania, rather than the Beatles, must be destroyed, root and branch if we are to survive. The glassy eyed adenoidal girls always on the verge of knee jerk hysteria, who compromised the Beatles camp followers and television audience could not possibly be interested in this British chamber quartet. They were only interested in an excuse for lapsing into the squealing syndrome with its accompanying spastic movements. I refuse to have anything to do with a 'Stamp out the Beatles' movement. What is imperative is a project to stamp out American adolescence", she fumed.

"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.

The concert with the fans on the stage

I don't know how on February 12, 1964, the fans that were seated on the stage while the Beatles performed were able to contain themselves.   This was when Beatlemania just started in the United States and girls were literally throwing themselves at the Beatles, but yet these fans on the stage didn't move at all.    I would love to hear a first-hand account from a fan that was on the stage and what she was thinking during the Carnegie Hall Show.

Practice practice practice

First concert in New York City

I still can't get over the fact that they allowed people to sit on stage during this concert and a riot did not break out.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

The big concert at Carnegie Hall

We love you Beatles

The Beatles' Carnegie Hall concert was a strange one. Not the actual concert, mind you, but the set up of the two shows.   First of all there were fans sitting on the stage with the Beatles (some of them recording the show with their home movie camera), and then there were all of these fans sitting way up in a tiered balcony.   I know this is fine for theater, but for a Beatles concert it always looked to be a little dangerous.  

Fans took advantage of the balcony and made large signs and banner to hang from them to get the boys' attention.   One of those signs has been saved all of these years and is currently available on ebay.  As we always see these photographs in black and white, the pure brightness of the colors somewhat surprised me.   There is no way the Beatles could not have seen this "We love you" sign while they were giving the concert.  The sign, at 6 feet tall, is bigger than any of the members of the band!

Here is what the seller says about the sign:

As a 15 year old Beatlemaniac, I'd prepared for the event by making a huge sign which I hung over the balcony of my second-tier box. In neon spray paint were the carefully blocked out words "We Love You". The six foot tall, heart shaped sign attracted a lot of attention. I subsequently found pictures of it in three fan magazines, and I am sure there were more.

I am offering for sale the very sign. It has spent the majority of the last 50 years stored in my father's studio in Ridgefield, Connecticut.

Maybe the most amazing thing about the sign is that it has lasted for the past 50 years and is a piece of Beatle fan history that really should be in a museum.

Ed Rudy story part 3

Ed Rudy part 3

On Tuesday, February 11^th, the Beatle boys headed for Washington D.C. and their engagement at the Washington Coliseum. They had originally planned to fly down to Washington.  However, a snowstorm developed and it was decided that the Beatles would go to Washington via train.  The Pennsylvania Railroad made arrangements to add on a special coach to their daily “Congressman Express” train.

The Beatles made their way to Pennsylvania station, and with the help of a regiment of policemen, reached their special coach which was already full with newspapermen and radio interviewers.  Thousands of teenagers were on hand at Pennsylvania station.  The noise of everyone screaming an hollering, at the top of their voices was deafening.  As the train moved out of Pennsylvania station, all the members of the Beatle party breathed a sigh of relief for they had not been protected by the police and all had been terribly shaken up, pushed and shoved.  It was in the station that our broadcast line had been broken by the crowd…during a live broadcast and we were cut off the air.

Throughout the run to Washington, there were interviews upon interviews, picture sessions upon picture sessions.  The Beatle Boys enjoyed every minute on the train and were amazed at how different they are from English trains—not having small and separate compartments.  When the train arrived in Washington, so many Beatle fans showed up that the police was unable to control the crowds.  A big 20 foot “Welcome to Washington” sign was held up by some of the fans.   It was torn down by other Beatle fans trying to get closer to the Beatles.  The police formed a flying “V” wedge to help the Beatles to their limousines.  When they finally made it to their cars, they headed directly for the Washington Coliseum where a press conference was arranged prior to the booked stage performance. 

At this time, we interviewed the Beatles.  We asked them, “Aren’t the screams a little embarrassing to you?”  John Lennon replied, “The screams are wonderful.  It’s the teenager’s way of showing appreciation.  During a show, it helps to swing the show into a wonderful success.”

Another member of the press asked them when they expected to take their holiday (vacation) to which Ringo replied, “This was supposed to be our holiday until we were booked for America and came here!”

The Washington Coliseum set up a center stage in the middle of the auditorium.  The audience viewed Beatles from all directions and the Beatle Boys moving around on stage to give everyone a chance to see them. Ringo Starr, mounted on a revolving platform pounded away on the skins as he was slowly turned around.

The reception in Washington was real fab.  The screams and shouts deafening, the applause vibrating the rafters as all 9,000 Beatle fans made the Beatle Boys at home in the U.S.A. capitol.   The Beatles perspired under the hot lights of the stage and dodging showers of jellybeans, put on one of the greatest shows for their fans.  They rewarded their fans with a real gear session.  New York WINS deejay, Murray the K had a direct line to the Coliseum and broadcast from backstage.

As the Beatles waited to leave their Coliseum engagement, and while arrangements were being made to sneak them out, the boys sat around in the office of show promoter Harry Lynn.  When the go sign was received, the boys were led on a sneaky route, more complicated than any smuggler’s route ever devised during the days of the Civil War.

The Beatles headed for a special reception and costume ball at the British Embassy.  An English Major-general attached to the British Embassy was there all decked out with a Beatle wig and a mask.  Frank Mitchel, Embassy Press Attaché, of the staid British Embassy was asked about the Beatles.  Said Mitchel, “I think they’re fine…a riot!”  Then continued Mitchel, “the Beatles have given me more work to do than at any other time since the Queen of England was here sever years ago.”  A diplomatic curve was thrown to Attaché Frank Mitchel; one wit said that “the Beatles were the British payment for the Sky Bolt.  Do you think there is any validly in this? “  Mitchel said, “No  I wouldn’t say they’re the payment for the Sky Bolt. No…let’s say they’re the British payment for all that Spam you sent us during the war.”  

At one time, we were able to corner Ringo.  We asked him the following question.  “Ringo, you are often referred to as the sex symbol of the Beatles.  So tell me:  do you consider yourself so?”  Replied Ringo, “I’ve never heard this one before.  No, you can see me, you can see  I’m no sex symbol.  You can see my face.”  We asked Ringo if he anticipated the fabulous reception that he received in America to which he replied, “We never expected anything like this at all.  It’s even great than some of our English engagements.  The least reaction we had was in France were 78% of our audience was made of boys.  But here in America, it’s real gear.”

The Beatles were then introduced to Ambassador and Lady Onmsly-gore along with others in a receiving line at the British Embassy.  In the excitement, Sir David Onmsby-Gore mixed up the boys with their names.  The boys, in addition, made it all the more confusing by referring to John as George, to Ringo as Fred and to Paul as Charlie.

The Beatles Boys enjoyed their evening with the social elite of Washington even though they were jostled, pushed and shoved in all directions by everyone.  One gal snipped off a bit of Ringo’s hair from behind his left ear with a small manicure scissors.  Ringo’s statement cannot be printed here, but you can imagine what he said.

At the stroke of midnight, the Beatle boys made like Cinderella and headed back for the Shoreham Hotel and a much needed rest.  This day was a real hectic day in the life of each Beatle.  The pace had been killing.  As I headed back to my own hotel room, I wondered, “What nice glory?”

On Wednesday, February 12^th, the Beatle Boys headed back to New York.  Again it was a train journey and the Beatles crowds were everywhere.  Enroute on the train, the boys were rested, and in a fun making mood.  Ringo kidded around with reporters, donned a woman’s fur coat complete with white Astrakhan hat.  John kidded around on his hands and knees crawling under the swivel seats of the train.  George, on the other hand, dressed up as a waiter and with napkin over arm, had fun serving the train’s passengers.  Ringo off in the corner of the special coach was trying to get a few more winks of sleep.  Many photographs loaded him down with cameras while others were ringed around him taking pictures.

Since nobody had thought about this day being Lincoln’s birthday, more confusing and chaos was added to the expected bedlam.  This was because, it being a holiday, schools were closed everywhere.  Naturally, thousands upon thousands of additional Beatle fans, who would normally be attending school, had now made their way to Pennsylvania Station to welcome this Beatles back.  Pennsylvania Station was packed with fans and never in the history of the railroad station was confusion so rampant.

Many other trains had to extend their departure time because passengers couldn’t get to the gates to get on the trains.  It was really a fab day for the Beatles.  As at the Washington Coliseum, again the Beatle boys were smuggled out of the railroad station and to their Plaza Hotel accommodations.  Beatles fans, at the hotel were everywhere.  Crowds extended for blocks all around.

When the Beatles arrived at the Plaza hotel, they were hemmed in by fans everywhere.  Mounted policemen were called in to make an opening with their horses.  Finally, the Beatles were rushed into the hotel.

The chaos and havoc created by the Beatles must have been of some concern to the New York city police department.  They sent one of their top police aides to meet with the Beatles.  He appeared white-faced and nervous as he tried to establish order out of confusion.  George whispered to Ringo, “It looks like he’s cracking up!”

During the police conference, it was agreed that the boys would leave by a back freight elevator and through the Plaza Hotel kitchen, and then out through a secret door of the hotel in order to go to the late afternoon and evening shows that were scheduled at Carnegie hall.  This proved to be a good way of getting the Beatles out of the hotel and over to Carnegie Hall without too much confusion although heartbreaking for the fans waiting in front of the hotel. 

Carnegie Hall, known as the venerable shrine of classical music, echoed to a resounding wave of Beatlemania.  Approximately 3,000 fans jammed packed their way into Carnegie Hall paying form $1.65 to $5.50 per squashing.

Each of the performances lasted about 2 hours.  New York’s deejay, Murray Kaufman and B. Mitchell Reed, acted as emcees.  Each performance was pure bedlam and those tucked away in the balcony and rafters heard nothing of the Beatles, saw the Beatle’ lips moving, but in the din of the shouts, whistles, screams and hysterical squeals overpowered the Beatle sound.  

Beatle fans rocked and reeled back and forth in their seats to the temp of the music set by the Beatles.  Jellybeans pelted the famed Beatles throughout their performance.   When the history of Carnegie Hall is written, the double-header performance of the Beatles will surely by highlighted as one of the most spectacular performance to ever emanate from this staid concert hall.  At the end of the evening performance, the boys sneaked around back to their Plaza Hotel suite and were early to bed for a night of restful bliss.  Beatlemania in America was firmly entrenched and the British had finally established a Beatle front in the United States.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

Some fan taken photos of the Carnegie Hall performance that was 50 years ago today.