13,000 Beatles Fans Scream Adulation (1966)

 

13,000 Beatles Fans Scream Adulation to Prophets of Din

By Thomas Willis

Chicago Tribune

August 13, 1966

    "Prepare yourselves", said the bass voice behind us, and there in the flesh were the prophets of den, something like 13,000 treble voices sliced the echoing International Amphitheater yesterday afternoon with a knifing scream, which instantly passed the aureole threshold of pain.

     Flash bulbs from 1,000 cameras stabbed the dark hall with continuous lightning. Paul, John, and George half-ran down the curtained stairs at the rear of the small stage, crowded with the giant speaker cabinets and winking electronic gear of a 1500-watt amplifying system. Ringo clambered to the drummer's throne at the rear. The Beatles had arrived.

     The infernal shriek continued practically unabated for the 27 minutes allotted to the ensemble, swirling in the ear and setting off those internal harmonic rings, which last and last. Now and then the nerves rebelled and reduced it all to a jumble of wind, letting it whistle by. The amplifiers contributed a harmony or two, which could be recognized "Yesterday,"  "Paperback Writer," "Rock and Roll Music", in a voice which could be identified with the lips of the performers on stage. 

    This was all the vast majority of participants and the tribal rite required. Tributes, cigarette butts, paper balls, popcorn bags, and possibly a jelly bean or two landed on the stage with one narrow miss on a Beatle's head; favored with a notice, young admirers in the front rows sobbed their gratitude. Farther back in the audience, the merest wave in any direction set off renewed waves of adulation. Affected girls bobbed up like popping corn, only to be motioned to their seats by one of the 200 Andy Frain ushers holding flashlights.

     The quartet, smartly dressed in green, went on with the show even when the amplifier, overloaded with screams, gave out, leaving Ringo Starr's drum solo practically unaccompanied. John Lennon flashed his cheesecake smile at a photographer and tried a Hindu neck trick or two. Paul McCartney said it was "good to be back" and "thank you" to everyone. George Harrison spent much of the time getting his guitar, at least, turned on. 

    The rest of the afternoon was given over to the Remains, who worked hard keeping things moving. The Ronettes, three girls who must sing better than their amateurish presence indicates. Bobby Hebb, a razzle dazzle imitation of Sammy Davis Jr., and the Cyrcles, a pleasant boyish quartet who are not above singing four-part harmony.

     In the audience was Seiji Ozawa, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra summer conductor at Ravinia. It is just possible his ears may stop ringing before tonight's Van Cliburn reception. 

    In this observer's opinion, the Beatles have made notable contributions to folk poetry with their gentle, psychologically valid lyrics and their adventurous use of instruments that place them in a different league from the rest of a gimmick-ridden industry. As a gesture of thanks, perhaps attendance at a concert is in order. Once, though, is enough. 

    The Frain ushers were assisted by 105 policemen under the direction of Captain Leo Powers of Area Three and 200 firemen under the direction of Division Marshal Francis Murphy. Looking over the crowd of neatly dressed, well-behaved youngsters before the concert, it was hard to see the necessity for such precautions. After the banshee yell began, we understood.

     Gross take for the two concerts was reported at $136,000. The Beatles will leave early today for Detroit. Next stop on their 18-day tour, which includes Cleveland, Washington, Philadelphia, Toronto, Boston, Memphis, Cincinnati, St. Louis, New York, Seattle, and Los Angeles, winding up in San Francisco on August 29.

Beatles Sing New Tune in Subdued Tone Here (1966)

 

Beatles Sing New Tune in Subdued Tone Here

By Jean Etsinger

Chicago Tribune

August 13, 1966

    On my way to the blasphemous Beatles press conference, this cab driver told me, "I guess they didn't really mean it. (You know whose remark about you know what) But they shouldn't boast about themselves."

     Well, if they ever did before, they don't any more. I was prepared for most anything from the Beatles, except quiet, polite, and thoughtful replies to reporters' questions. From what they've been saying during their brief stay in Chicago, the four floptops not only don't think they're greater than Jesus, they don't even wish they were.

     In the press conference Thursday, the Beatles apologized for a slur upon Christianity attributed to John Lennon in an interview. Lennon told reporters he didn't mean it, and "I don't have unchristian thoughts."

     Their first night's headquarters were at the Astor Towers Hotel, Astor and Scott Streets, but they slept at the Ascot Motel, 11th and Michigan Avenue, and spent last night at another undisclosed hotel.  The secret maneuvers were undertaken to prevent teenage crowds from creating incidents outside the Astor Towers Hotel. 

    Things weren't up to Beatlemania standards. Some 200 teenagers, mostly girls, dutifully demonstrated for their idols. Now and then. Mostly when the television cameras were grinding, and the flash bulbs were flaring in their faces. When "they" tossed a paper object from a top-floor window, dozens of screaming girls dived to the pavement, trying to grasp it. A few emerged triumphantly with wadded scraps. One of the few males noted, "Maybe next time they'll throw something big -- like Ringo."

     Are the Beatles still number one? Not according to a group of teens I talked with outside the hotel. One boy said the Byrds are the most popular, but the other voted for the Stones and the Raiders. "Mostly because we see them a lot on television and dance to the records."

     John Lennon says "We don't think we're slipping. Our music is better. Our sales are slipping," he says it as if it's no big thing. In fact, I got the impression that being a Beatle isn't the greatest sometimes. This is the group's third visit to Chicago on tour, and they've yet to see anything of the city. George Harrison notes philosophically that if they really do slip in popularity, "Then we'll get to do things like visit Chicago." That made me feel sort of sad.

We Shall Return McCartney Vows (1976 Chicago)

 

We Shall Return McCartney Vows

Lynn Van Matre

Chicago Tribune

June 3, 1976

    "Some people," Paul McCartney was saying, with a look of puzzlement, "seem to think this is some sort of farewell tour. This is our first tour. We'll be back."

     The tour in question, of course, is McCartney and Wings' current extravaganza, marking the first time in 10 years that the ex-Beatle has appeared in the United States. 

    "All I remember about the last time we played Chicago," he recalled, "was seeing the Stockyards." The scene then was the International Amphitheater, and the band he played with was the Beatles. This time around, the scene was the Chicago Stadium, where McCartney and Wings had just wound up the second of three nights of sold-out shows that began Monday. The crowd, blessed out by more than two hours of music, was slowly filing out of the stadium with die-hard McCartney fans hanging around the gates, hoping for a glimpse of their hero.

     Backstage, McCartney and Wings, keyboard player, the woman he calls his "friend and Mrs"., otherwise known as Linda, had exchanged their stage duds for more casual jeans and cowboy boots. Settling down on the couch in their dressing room, the two chatted and bantered briefly about the tour, their music, and the Beatles.

     The rumor had been rampant that there was a possibility of John Lennon showing up to share the stage with Wings at one of their shows. The man who once collaborated with McCartney on some of the Beatles' best songs has yet to materialize. 

    "Well," said McCartney, "we saw John before the tour started in New York. Shared a cup of tea with him in his kitchen."

     "Japanese tea", Linda elaborated, taking her eyes from The Tonight Show in progress on the dressing room color telly. 

    "Yes, Japanese tea," Paul confirmed. "Anyway, we left it that if he feels like turning up any place along the way, fine, but it's no big number. We won't be hurt if he doesn't make it. Actually, anyone could turn up: Ringo, George, Mayor Baba..."

     "Even Jesus," Linda put in.

     "She's just having a bit of fun with you," Paul said. "The thing is, if any of them showed up, it'd just  mean people would start talking again about us reuniting," and as McCartney keeps saying when asked about that very possibility, "You can't reheat a soufflé."

     Actually, he and Wings are doing very nicely on their own, thank you. So far, the band has been snaring deservedly rave reviews for their shows, which amount to bang-up celebrations of rock and roll, and are musically a far cry from their records, which frequently have been marred by too much slick sweetness and vapidity.

     "Yeah, I know a lot of critics haven't liked our records," Paul admitted. "Lightweight music, that's what they've called it. I can tell the difference in our playing live and our playing on the records, though. It's true. The thing is, when you make a record, you're putting the music down on vinyl forever, making a statue, as it were, encasing it in cement. On stage, we're just throwing the music into the air, letting it happen. The pressure's off a little.

     "I don't get overly angry at what the critics have said about our records. Well, sometimes it does bother me a little, but there's nothing I can do about it anyway. At least until the next album. There's nothing to do now but enjoy the tour."

     "And punt," Linda added, lighting a cigarette. "Yeah, punt," McCartney repeated. "They've been giving her a little bit of trouble about her hands," he said with a good-humored glance at his wife. "Some reviewer from Rolling Stone wrote that when Linda stands downstage for the song "My Love", she looks funny standing there with her hands on her hips for the whole number. So, for Monday night's show, she took her hands off her hips for a while, and he wrote that she looked fidgety. Maybe she should just stick her hands in her turnips."

    Turnips? "Turn ups," spelled out McCartney, gesturing toward the rolled-up cuffs on the couple's jeans.

     "I like to fidget," Linda explained. 

    "We're just having some more fun with you," Paul said.

     "I'm really not all that nervous on stage," Linda clarified the burning issue. "Not anymore."

     During their show in Chicago, which wound up Wednesday night,  the McCartneys chose not to stay in a hotel. Instead, they rented a private home for themselves and their children. "I don't know exactly where it is," said Paul. "Someplace outside the city-- in the country, and the fresh air. We haven't really been doing much while we've been in Chicago. We went horseback riding one afternoon with the kids, and that was nice. Mostly, we've just been hanging out."

     Plans call for the McCartneys and Wings to wind up their current tour on June 23 in Los Angeles. Every concert along the way is being recorded with an eye toward a possible live album.

    " As soon as this tour is over," McCartney said, "We'll put on our little tin hats and get to work sorting through all the tapes. If we get enough good stuff, we'll release."

McCartney and Wings: A Soaring Sound of Celebration (Chicago 1976)

 

McCartney and Wings:  A Soaring Sound of Celebration

By Lynn Van Matre

Chicago Tribune

June 2, 1976

    Paul McCartney and Wings touched down in Chicago Monday night at the stadium, coming on in a swirl of fog, a flash of light, and a burst from a bubble machine, and leaving two hours later, tasting triumph. 

    The group's three-day tour here ends Wednesday night. The reception accorded to McCartney, who hasn't played Chicago since his Beatles days a decade ago, was nothing less than expected, of course. But the concert was far better than I anticipated. A bang-up celebration of rock and roll that included several old Beatles songs and some fairly striking and well-done special effects.

     For McCartney, now 33, the road from the Beatles to his current flight with Wings has been, as the song goes, a long and winding one. When the Beatles broke up, he was already at work on his first solo album, "McCartney", a Paul and Linda fair released in 1970, with Mr. McCartney handling all the songs and instruments and Mrs. McCartney chiming in on background vocals. 

    It was soon followed by the best-selling "Ram" album, then came "Wildlife" with Denny Laine on guitars and Denny Seiwell on drums, in addition to the McCartneys. And in 1973, Wings toured Britain for the first time. Later, the band produced several more albums, "Band on the Run", "Venus and Mars", and the latest Wings release, " At the Speed of Sound ". By this time, the Wings lineup had evolved into the current crew: Paul on his famous left-handed bass, lead vocals, and keyboards, Linda McCartney on keyboards, Joe English on drums, and Laine and Jimmy McCulloch on guitars, with a four-man horn section added for the United States tour. 

    So much for the academics. Monday night at the stadium, all that musical history came to life with McCartney's set, including songs from nearly every album and a few tunes from years back. The crowd anticipated a bit of the Beatles and went wild. "Well", McCartney said, "I don't think this is from that far back", but the band swung into "Lady Madonna" and for the first time during the evening, the audience started stamping and clapping along. Clowning a bit at the keyboard, McCartney waited for the applause to die down, then started in on "The Long and Winding Road", a beautiful old Beatles number, while the crowd breathed a collective sigh. Memories, you know.

     But the Beatles are gone, and for my money, McCartney has emerged as the best of the bunch. While many of his pleasant-enough recorded songs have been criticized for their unfortunate tendency to go in one ear and out the other, his live performance of them is something else. Again on stage, the tunes took on a real rock-and-roll edge, and his showmanship was competent and compelling enough. If he has a tendency to mug and camp it up a bit, posing at the piano, well, it goes over big. And what did you expect? 

    Besides the rock and roll, the set also featured a nifty change of pace in the way of an acoustic interlude with McCulloch, Laine, and Paul playing acoustic guitars and Linda chiming in on a couple of songs, including "Drink to Me", "Blue Bird", and an old Paul Simon tune, "Richard Cory". Then the band disappeared, except for Paul, who sang "Blackbird" from those long ago days, and "Let's see if you remember this one," he mused. By that time, though, the crowd had already recognized the opening chords of "Yesterday."

     The acoustic break followed Wings' big visual thriller of the evening, a rendition of "Live and Let Die", accompanied by a burst of flame from fire pots on stage, laser beams, and strobe lights -- gimmicky, yes, but smashing in effect. The song was introduced by Linda, whom McCartney referred to as "my friend and Mrs."  Up until then, she stayed pretty much in the background. 

    Linda, of course, has come in for a good deal of flak from the critics for her less-than-virtuoso playing and being generally all around unnecessary in the scheme of things. Monday night, she fit in well enough, although she still seems ill at ease when she's not behind the keyboards. When Paul traded his bass once again for keyboards, and Linda stood down front at the mic for "My Love", she looked uncomfortable, like a woman in search of something to do with her hands.

     The capacity crowd, of course, had no such problem. As the concert drew to an end, closing with "Band on the Run", an accompanying grainy film of that particular album cover, a bunch of people, including Wings, looking as though they were in the midst of a jailbreak, the audience turned deafening, matches were struck, sparklers were hauled out, Bicks flicked, and then finally McCartney and the band came back for more, choosing to end at last with "Hi, hi, hi", and the unrecorded song "Soily." It had been a long, long set, overly so, perhaps by some standards, but then McCartney has been a long time coming.

Ringo Closes Book on Dark Page in the Past (1981)

Ringo Starr Closes Book on Dark Page in the Past

By Lynn Van Matre 

Chicago Tribune

March 25, 1981

    "We always knew that there were nuts out there," said Ringo Starr, reluctantly reflecting one more time on the topic of former Beatle John Lennon's death at the hands of a "fan" last December. "But it never crossed our minds that we were potential targets. I'm still sort of brain-damaged thinking about it, and I don't really like talking about it all the time. It doesn't help anybody, and it helps me even less. It puts everything back in people's minds. And once something like that happens, you got other crazoids that think it's a good idea. Certainly, entertainers are more security conscious these days, especially me and Paul and George."

     Starr and actress/fiance, Barbara Bach, accompanied by a couple of recently acquired bodyguards, stopped off in Chicago the other day to promote their new film, Caveman, the prehistoric comedy, as United Arts describes it features singer, actor, drummer and ex Beatle star in the role of a cave dweller who wants to drag  Bach off to his digs for a bit of zug zug. Zug zug, an expression of lust, is one of 15 words  (others include Bobo, caca, and gwee) that make up the entire dialog of the film. 

    Bach, a veteran of 22 films, including The Spy Who Loved Me, saw the film as an opportunity to try her hand at comedy again  (Up the Academy, her last effort, didn't go so well.) Starr, whose last acting role was that of Mae West's husband in the ill-fated flop Sextet, cottoned to the fact that Caveman didn't necessitate learning pages and pages of dialogue, and it was a load of laughs. "If you like to laugh and you want to smile, Caveman, just go down your aisle," Aasomewhat prejudiced Starr poetically appraised the project, which he and Bach described as a "family film."

     "It's PG," he adds, "and that's only because of a couple of scenes."

     "Actually, I can't imagine why it's PG instead of G," said Bach, a friendly, down-to-earth woman whose first glimpse of Ringo Starr in person occurred in the mid-60s when the Beatles played Shea Stadium, and Bach took her younger sister to see them.

     "Dinosaur dung," explained Starr succulently, "there are two scenes involving dinosaur dung. You can't show shit in a movie," he adds, bemused, "but it's okay to show stabbings and killings."

    Like many celebrities, Starr does interviews only when he has something to sell. "You only go on the road," he says, "When you have something to promote. This is the first film we've done together, and we wanted to promote it."

     But Starr figured from the beginning that most of the questions put to him along the route would have less to do with Caveman than with a killing. He was, of course, right. "I've answered the same questions about John's death over and over again," says Starr, politely resigning to the inevitable. "After this tour is over, that will be the end of it. I don't want to talk about it anymore. But now it's still fresh in people's minds. I can understand that a lot of people feel like they've lost a friend."

     Starr's last conversation with Lennon took place the day after Thanksgiving. "He was very upbeat," recalls Starr. "He was excited that his new album was selling, and he had some songs he thought I should do on my new album. He was going to play on the album and produce a couple of tracks, and we had made plans to start recording in January." Three weeks later, Starr and Bach were vacationing in the Bahamas when Bach's daughter called from Los Angeles to tell them Lennon had been shot. 

    "We thought it must be a mistake at first", said Starr, "Then we got three more calls from friends confirming the news."  Of the three surviving former Beatles, only Starr showed up at the Dakota Hotel where Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, mourned.

    "Well, I was out of my own area anyway," says Starr, a legal resident of Monte Carlo who lives in Los Angeles with Bach and her children by a previous marriage. "George and Paul were at home, so it was no big deal for us to leave the Bahamas. We hardly felt like having a holiday after that, so we decided to fly to New York and say hello to Yoko. Our friend was gone. Her husband was gone. All we wanted to do was say hello and see if there was anything we could do."

     Initially, Ono, who knew Bach only slightly, asked that Starr come to the Dakota alone. He refused, explaining that he and Bach went everywhere together. Ono understood, and the pair arrived at the apartment building where Lennon had been shot only hours earlier. "It wasn't safe," said Star. There wasn't a good atmosphere. "

    "We went on impulse," added Bach, "And when we got there, we realized it wasn't the safest place to be. We stayed in New York for eight hours, and after the visit, we realized we should get out of there."

     The world's reaction to Lennon's death surprised Starr little. "It did affect the whole world," he said. "John did in life and in death. I wasn't surprised by the amount of publicity. Though, I was surprised at the amount of trash. Every newspaper in the world had it in the headlines, which was their right But then you had everybody's story coming out. Like 'I knew John Lennon 200 years ago,' or some waiter's 53-page account of the day John Lennon said to me, 'More coffee.' Everyone was selling their story, but that's life. You get used to it. And every interview we've talked to on this tour so far has asked about John, and every future one we  will talk to on this tour will too. It's normal, it's natural, it's newsworthy, and now let's go on."

     There will be, incidentally, no Lennon tribute album, as was widely reported and rumored earlier. "I spent a week with Paul doing some work on his new album, and he produced some of my tracks for me," said Starr, whose new album is scheduled for a summer release. "It was just the two of us, but someone decided that, because Paul had asked a lot of people to join in on his new album, it was going to be a John Lennon tribute. I denied it over and over, but nobody took any notice."

     As for rock music in general, Star finds the scene to be a bit monotone. "I keep looking for something that will blow me away, send me home. And I enjoy a lot of new and old groups, but there are very few people around that I would run out and buy their albums. Not that I'm a great writer, but I don't think they're writing that many great songs today. I don't think the playing is that great on a lot of records, either.

     "There are some good tracks on a lot of albums, but it's very rare that I could stand to listen to a whole album by anybody, including myself. The only record I can think of that I can play all of side one and all of side two, and enjoy the whole thing every time, is an old Tim Hardin record, the one with " If I Were a Carpenter " and " Misty Roses " on it. 

    "The new bands", he laments, "don't want to change and explore too much, or else, explore in a very narrow band instead of a wide field. Take Devo," he says, "they're interesting to a very specific portion of the population. They seem to stay that way, rather than trying to cover a lot of bases, which is what someone like Elton John did, and what I tried to do. I'm not aiming just at teenagers or people in their 20s or their 50s or their 90s. I try to hit them all. And the Beatles? We tried to cover everybody, from your daughter to your grandmother. What happens with a lot of bands," Starr says, "is that the first album is dynamite, lots of energy, but then you've got to come up with the second one, and that can be hard. We found it difficult too. I'm not saying that the newer bands are going through anything that we didn't go through. We weren't any less restricted than they are, but we managed to get past that and change constantly. We're exploring all the time. The new bands just want to play it safe."

Starr Not Interested in Band Tour (1981)

 

Starr Not Interested in Band Tour

By Aaron Gold

Chicago Tribune

March 28, 1981

    "I'm not interested in touring with a live band ever again," said Ringo Starr during lunch in his Chicago hotel room. Starr and his fiancée, actress Barbara Bach, were to have lunch in the Pump Room, but their security advisor suggested they remain in their hotel during their three-day stay to promote their new film, Caveman.

     Bach was sporting an enormous diamond cut by laser into a five-pointed star. The two plan to be married sometime this year, probably in Europe, with about 50 friends present.

     The witty and charming Starr, who left the hotel only for an appearance on the Phil Donahue show, has been forced to travel with a five-man security detail since the death of John Lennon in December. His new Columbia album, due out in June, tentatively, is titled You Can't Fight Lightning.

Teen Out Yell Beatles (Chicago 1965)

 Teens Out Yell Beatles

By Will Lenoard

The Chicago Tribune

August 21, 1965

More than 50,000 teenagers, 90% of them girls, screamed “Beatles” into oblivion yesterday at two performances in White Sox Park; scarcely a note was heard. Everybody was ecstatic, jumping with joy. Some fainted, but there were no injuries. Even the Beatles liked it. “They paid good prices to get in. Who are we to say whether or not they should scream?” Said Beatle John Lennon, 24, when asked at a between-shows press conference whether it bothered him to be shouted down.

  More than 200 persons, some of them reporters, jammed into the White Sox Bard’s room for the press conference.  Almost everybody agreed that the mop-haired Liverpudlians were pretty cute in their replies.

C Haley, Deputy British Council General in Chicago, spoke up from the back of the room. “Do you think you're doing a good job for your country?”  “Yes. Do you?” shouted back Lennon.  Haley laughed and told the four subjects of the Queen (they recently won the Order of the British Empire to the amazement of many and the consternation of some) that he thought they were doing a good job.

 To some of the questions about their likes, dislikes, loves, and habits, the Beatles had a stock answer, “lots of rubbish”. A girl reporter asked what they thought of a comment that” you could be great songwriters if you wanted to?”  “Well,” said Beatle, Paul McCartney, 23 “We write what we feel like at the moment. Like Cole Porter did. People will like us a lot more when we're older. just you watch.”

 Apparently, rowdiness on Thursday night cut short the Beatles' performance in Houston, and they were asked about it. “They sent about 25 cops out to take care of 5000 kids,” McCartney replied. “In every town, they think ‘our kids are different. They have common sense. That just shows you the way some policemen think.” Behavior at Houston was among the worst they encountered. The Beatles agreed. Teenagers climbed on the wings of their airplane. “Chicago”, they said, “Was among the best behaved cities.”  

Between 20,000 to 25,000 screaming teenagers packed both decks at Sox Park for the afternoon performance between the baseline flag poles, leaving only the bleachers vacant. But last night's crowd was larger, so that the announced goal of 62,000 paid was not far off.

 What the Beatles apparently like best was the $150,000 to $160,000 gate, which, compared with only $30,000 they took out of Chicago last September 5, after their appearance at the International Amphitheater.

 A solid line of blue-shirted police sat shoulder to shoulder, their backs to the infield to prevent any teenagers from jumping into Beatle territory and taking second base, where the plywood bandstand had been erected. But nobody tried.

There were 10 microphones for four Beatles. But even at that, they were not heard above the screaming. With the help of two girls, wise and Beatle lore, the titles of some selections were discovered. “You Make me Dizzy. Miss Lizzie, “She's a Woman”. “I Feel Fine,” “Help,”(  Title of this year's Beatle movie) and “A Hard Day's Night”( Title of last year's Beatle movie.) The Screaming went up a few decibels when Beatle McCartney sang his own composition “I'm Down” making this one easily the artistic success of the evening.

 The Beatles arrived quietly at Midway Airport at 3:15am yesterday, with only about 350 teenagers who violated the curfew to do it on hand for the screaming.

 Their headquarters were in $105 a day suite at the O'Hare Sahara Motel on Manheim Road, Shiller Park. The entertainers were scheduled to leave today for Minneapolis.

 There were only a few adults in the crowd at Sox Park yesterday. One gray-haired woman was overheard, telling her seatmate, “They all wear wigs, you know.”

Tale of Four Teens on Beatle Hunt (Chicago 1965)

Tale of Four Teens on Beatle Hunt

By Mary Maher

The Chicago Tribune

August 27, 1965

 

Four 16-year-old Louisville girls went home last week with treasured relics, four crumbled, stained paper napkins that touched the lips of the Beatles after their morning meal. At least that's what one woman said. The salesperson charged the girls only $1 a piece and made them promise not to tell anyone of the favor she had done them. Just a shadow of doubt crossed Carol Francisco's mind. “My napkin had icing on it, and I didn't see any sweet rolls on the breakfast tray, but Lib said she thought John might have had a sweet roll.”

 “Every hero becomes a bore, at last”, said Emerson, so it's possible that someday John and Paul, George and Ringo may be reduced to disposing of their napkins, soap scraps, cigarette butts and discarded newspapers, in the manner of most mortals. At the moment, their debris is probably the fastest-moving commodity on the teen market.

 Carol, Lib (Olivia Morris), Alana Nash, and Louise Carsten were among the 60,000 fans who came up with $5.50 tickets last Friday to watch the Beatles writhe thu performances in Comiskey Park. Hundreds more broke curfew laws and police lines, on the chance that they might somehow make more personal contact with the demigods.

The girls from Louisville spent $250—6 months of planning on their project. But for them, as for the others, it was fruitless. A Beatle hunt is one of the most unrewarding junkets a human can participate in. It requires long-range scheming and devious strategy.

Last February, Carol sent for tickets to both Beatles shows. She and her friends began writing for reservations in Chicago hotels, eliminating only those that asked for deposits. They ended up with rooms reserved in 13 hotels and were reprimanded for their tactic only once. Two hotels under one ownership, apparently, compared letters and refused to cooperate.

 The Hilton Hotel’s replies snagged plans, too. Carol's father, the Reverend Clyde T Francisco, is a faculty member of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. The girls wrote to the hotels on his official stationery, identifying themselves as seminary students, and when the Hilton politely offered them reduced student rates in the dormitory section, the girls decided not to pursue the matter.

 But they needn't have feared resistance from Hotel Management. The hotel where the Beatles stayed was accepting reservations from teenagers without question, only asking that one of the party be 18 years old. Carol's group brought along Sylvia Bohannon, a college senior, as a chaperone.

From Thursday afternoon until Saturday morning, the girls joined several 100 other fans in befriending porters, police guards, waitresses, and bellhops in an effort to get to the fifth-floor suite where the Beatles were ensconced. Nothing availed, but they did get a close look at the idols once, when they arrived at nearly 4 a.m. on Friday.

 “I touched Paul”, said Olivia, “I  asked him if I could touch him, and he nodded.” Carol was close enough to their limousine to toss her gifts through the window. They were large, framed, carefully done sketches of the Beatles' famous faces. “They fell in John's lap. He just glanced through them and left them there. He didn't care. They don't care. And they didn't nod at us or even look at us. They ignored everyone.”

 With 500 others, the girls waited for five hours to glimpse the Beatles. The next day, when they left the hotel for their afternoon concert, The Beatles finally crept out the back door, where only a small group were privileged enough to rush them and witness the terror on their faces.

 They stayed up all Friday night without success. “The whole hotel was like a dormitory”, said Carol. “All the kids were up all night visiting and trying to get to the fifth floor, but the Beatles press agents and the hotel managers were as mean as ever, yelling at us to stay in our rooms.”

 They were disappointed, but not as disappointed as the girl from a town in Indiana who told her mother she was staying at the home of a friend and diffused her bankroll on an $18 single hotel room.

 Carol says she wouldn't do it again. “I don't like them as much as I did, but it was fun just trying to get to them. And we did get closer than a lot of kids, and the shows were great, of course.” Carol admitted you couldn't hear much over the screening, “but what you could hear them, they weren't off key, like they were last year.”

Beatlemania Hits Area Today (Chicago 1965)

 

Beatle Mania Hits Area Today

No writer listed

Berwyn Life

August 20, 1965

 

To Beatle or not to Beatle? That's the question, and most likely the answer will be the former, as area teenagers flock to Sox Park today for the two performances by their idols, The Beatles.

 Among those representing the community at the song scream fest will be Rose Sisco, 6820 Riverside Drive, Vice President of The Beatles Limited Charter Fan Club, with national headquarters in New York, and Pat Schneider, 6440 West 28th Place, a member of that fan club. Both will be sophomores at Morton West.

 What material do you take to a Beatle concert? The girls report they're going armed with cameras, tape recorders, binoculars, pictures and pens and pencils in hopes of getting close enough to get an autograph.

But that's not all. Should they use the quarterback sneak successfully and manage to get near the performers? They are going to present them with a few gifts, the nature of which are being kept secret for fear of others duplicating them.

And that's not all. Miss Sisco is planning to take a chartered bus with other fans and follow the group to their concert in Minneapolis tomorrow. She says that  she’ll go as far as she can travel with them, “but when Pat and I graduate, we would like to go to England and see the land made famous by the Beatles.”

 Miss Schneider wasn't always impressed by her current favorites. “As matter of fact, the first time I heard a record by them, I didn't like it. But from then on, they were just great.”

 She said the localites saw A Hard Day's Night seven times, owned just about every Beatles record and album made and played them every day. “Many people complain about their long hair, but it's not as long as other singing groups.” they commented.

 Both girls are interested in dramatics. Miss Schneider just recently played Gretel in the Morton summer theater production of Hansel and Gretel.  Rose, who attended Immaculate Heart of Mary last year, is planning on trying out for school plays at Morton.

How long will the Beatles last? The girls feel they will be around for a long while, and even when they fade away, so to speak, the records will still sell.

The Quietest Beatle is a Businessman Now (1976)

 

The Quietest Beatle, George Harrison's a Businessman Now

By Peter Goddard

The Toronto Star

November 20, 1976

    It all started when I met George Harrison in the hallway. My fantasy is one of those deep-rooted, most cherished of Beatles dreams.  A party was being thrown in his honor in one of the hotel ballrooms. So what was he doing here? Was he looking to escape all the record industry hustle?  The old days? That was it!  I thought he was looking for good times past Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

    "Hey, listen, George," I wanted to say, "Why don't you and me head downtown, find a little band someplace and sit in for a couple of hours? I know all the words to "Twist and Shout", and I can hum most of the other stuff. The headlines were already forming in my mind. "Ex-Beatle forms band with mystery, piano player," they would read, "Lennon wants in!" 

    I think he smiled at me. I'm not sure, though. George Harrison disappeared and my fantasy, along with him, into a room full of waiting DJs and record industry executives with two Martini smiles. I promptly forgot all the words to "Twist and Shout". 

    There he was at the reception, a frail-looking figure with a fixed smile. This was business, the so-called Quiet Beatle, the most meditative, religious, and introspective of them all, this being his own best public relations campaign. He knew everyone had come to see a Beatle. So he was delivering the goods.

     He had been ambivalent about money, about the affairs of the world in general. In his first book, written about the Beatles, A Cellar Full of Noise (1964) The Beatles, late manager Brian Epstein explained that Harrison, "though quiet, is curious about money and wants to know how much is coming in."

     In 1966, the year the band stopped touring, the one which saw Harrison's last public appearance before his 1972 concert for Bangladesh [sic], he told a writer bluntly, "I asked to be successful. I never asked to be famous."

     Famous he is, but successful? Like the other ex-Beatles, he is intent on making it on his own, and this means selling records and being available to the executives of his record company. So intent is he that, in fact, he seems quite willing to shed some of his privacy and mystique. Perhaps he has no alternative. When the Beatles went their separate ways in 1970, Harrison was the most immediately successful. Then the problem started in the 1974 concert series with Ravi Shankar. The first major tour by any ex-Beatle saw poorer-than-expected ticket sales. Worse, many of the performances received poor critical notices. 

    The crunches have come quicker and heavier this year. In September, an American federal judge found him guilty of subconsciously plagiarizing the 1962 Johnny Mac tune "He's So Fine" for his own hit, "My Sweet Lord" from the 1970s. In October, he was sued for $10 million by A&M Records in an action that also seeks to dissolve the Dark Horse record label he founded. The suit charges that the guitarist-singer reneged on a 1974 partnership agreement. "I felt really sad when they did that", he said, as he looked at all the gleaming faces around him. "I thought we had a family relationship, but when they said I wanted back all my money, that's crap. I mean, when I was with Capital, I gave up $250,000 just to go to A&M because I thought I'd be treated better. That's why I left A&M to go to Warner Bros. I like the people there."

     His expression never changed. He constantly looked grim. "See, I have to look after my future. I don't like dealing with business at all. I'm an artist, but I have to, I even, I've even been writing songs, "Sue Me Sue You Blues" about lawsuits. "

    He'll be singing his latest lawsuit song called "This Song" tonight when he makes a guest appearance on NBC's Saturday Night show hosted by Paul Simon. The tune is from his newest album, 33 1/3, which is being released next week. The title represents Harrison's age, the speed at which an LP rotates, and, one guesses, the leisurely pace of his career these days. 

    The party, though, was an attempt to fix that aspect of his life. So Harrison stood there obligingly as the assistant-assistant of this and the marketing manager of that were photographed with him. "Tell me, George," asked one executive, "What's harder, being a Beatle or being an ex-Beatle?"  Harrison, his hands thrust into his pockets, pressed his arm tightly along its sides "Being an ex Beatle", he said, evenly.

     When still another local executive explained that Harrison seemed so very human now, like he's one of us, the tone of the reception came clear. With the record company president mumbling and niceties like a road Rotary Club speaker with a promotional firm presentation, with all the talk about markets and projections, this could have been a meeting of a medium-sized Midwest sheet metal firm. All that was missing were cash flow charts. Harrison had been the prize exhibit at the reception, this fall's new line of software. 

    Back in his room, he took charge of himself, if nothing else. Still, he was never completely at ease as he sat on the edge of a chair, his small, compact body rigid. "I understand there was a mixed reaction when I did my last tour. One paper in each city said it was good, and one would say it was bad. People complained that I didn't do enough Beatles songs, but every song I did was something I had sung or written. After all, I never did 'Yesterday' or 'Eleanor Rigby'. I don't have to live up to people's concepts. I am what I am. I'm Popeye the Sailor Man."

     For a moment, there was a flash of the Harrison who, when asked about what he called his haircut, replied, 'Arthur.' But it was only a flash. It was business that mattered right then, even when discussing a possible reunion of the Beatles. The tone was almost like talking about a corporate merger. "When the Beatles were together, well, I could do it without having to consult anybody. As for the others, well, if they were free, if Lennon was free, say, I'd have him on my own Dark Horse label." At the reception, there was a persistent rumor that Harrison had, in fact, asked for a meeting with the rest of the Beatles in early January.

     "I know I sound serious about all this. People have always thought I was serious, but life is serious in a way. We're all stuck in our bodies, so you have to be happy with what you are doing here. That's serious, too. We must learn what our highest goals are. Find them through our work. He looked around steadily. This is my occupation."

     The first Beatle to become seriously involved with Indian philosophy, he is the only one to retain his beliefs. Six years ago, he became the financial guarantor for the central London headquarters of the Sri Radha Krishna sect, and it was his interest that prompted him to include a group of Indian musicians led by Ravi Shankar on his 1972 tour [sic]. It was the addition of the Indian music that drew the tour's heaviest criticism, but Harrison said, "There's no conflict between being in the music business and my beliefs. I mean, I once had a problem with materialism versus spiritualism, but I realized it wasn't owning things that was the problem. It was being attached to things. India influenced me a lot. Indian music influenced me rhythmically. But obviously it wasn't my only influence. I'm not a particularly flashy guitar player. I never used to be, but I've heard a lot of people copying my style."

    " I do like learning new things, though, playing with different musicians. Look, for 15 years of my life, I played with only three other people. I never knew other musicians before them, but there were a lot of things I didn't understand then. I had no understanding of the hysteria when I was young. I just felt something was going to happen." He reached for a Gitane just as he was asked how he reconciled his material success with his spiritual needs, the cigarette went unlit. "I was poor once", he said, quickly. "I wasn't born in a mansion with a Mercedes 600 outside. Every cent I've made, I've earned, in fact, most of it has been given away to record companies. You can walk out of here thinking I'm the biggest s--- in the world, and it wouldn't change me at all. I am when I am." He stopped. His eyes seemed to thunder. "You could think I'm great as well. That, too, won't change me."

George Harrison's in town

 

Linda's Kitchen in Chicago

Photos by Jorie Gracen

 June 4, 1995 - Chicago, Illinois 

Teen Diary Rekindles a Magical Debut

 Teen Diary Rekindles a Magical Debut

By Mary Mack Conger

The Chicago Tribune

September 5, 1984

        20 years ago, a 14-year-old Iowa girl traveled to Chicago to see the Beatles perform at the International Amphitheater. For her, it was an impossible dream come true. She wrote about that day and the events proceeding and following it in a diary. 

        I found that diary in my attic recently, and suddenly it was 1964 again, I was that 14-year-old girl.

 April 11:  The Beatles are coming to the USA! It's true! Sue and I are making plans to see them at the Indiana State Fair. Maybe Sue's sister will take us, but we'll get there if we have to crawl. Mom says, When I get older, I will look back on these days and realize how silly I was, but how can I help it now?

April 12: The Beatles have the two top songs in the nation, number one, "Can't Buy Me Love" and number two, "Twist and Shout".

April 14:   This town is a real hick town. I sure wish I lived in England. But here's some good news, Sue and I learned today that we don't have to go clear to Indianapolis to see the Beatles. They're going to be just next door in Chicago!  Hey, maybe we could go to both places. Now we need to work on getting Sue's sister to take us.

April 15:   Chicago, here we come! Sue's sister said she'd take us. Now I have to start pulling in the babysitting jobs. Got to go now, as always, I've left my homework until 11.

 April 16: WLS is going to have a five-hour Beatles spectacular with a live person-to-person call to all of the Beatles on Saturday. I'm babysitting that night. Can't wait!

 April 17:  Made $3 babysitting last night. That's a start toward my Chicago fund. Sue sent our ticket money in today. I'm tired now.

 April 18: Today, Ron Riley and Art Robbins of WLS had the Beatles on the phone for two hours. They had just finished a session for their new movie called A Hard Day's Night. 

April 19:  I just finished redecorating my room. It looks more Beatle-ized now. 

April 29: No word from Triangle Productions. The tickets are all sold out. We don't know if we will get ours or not. 

May 12:   Sue stayed all night last night, She's washing her hair now. Last night, we called Triangle Productions. They said that tickets and refunds won't be sent out until June 15. That means we'll have to wait until about the 20th to know.

May 24 The Beatles were on The Ed Sullivan Show today, and the Dave Clark Five will be on next week. Forget it. 

June 3:  Ringo was stricken and collapsed at the recording studio today. The doctor said it was tonsillitis. Please, Ringo, don't be sick for your USA tour!

June 7: Today was the day Sue got the reply from Triangle Productions. Were the tickets in the envelope? Yes, they were! Our seats are in the 48th row, the first and second seats. Now, there's three whole months to wait. "Love Me Do" is number one again. 

July 7. Went to see Cleopatra today.  My bird died. It was Ringo's birthday.  

July 26: Sue made our Beatles trip reservations at a little motel in Chicago called the Lake Shore Drive Motel.  It will cost us about $15. My grand total that I have made so far from babysitting and helping grandma to clean her house is $12, so I have to buy film and stuff too.

August 4: The heat is on in Vietnam again.  There's another war threat. Oh, well. 

August 23:  The Beatles were on a repeat of Ed Sullivan today.  School starts in less than a week. But more important is that it's only 11 days until we go to Chicago. I can't believe it!  I wrote two letters to two girls in England today. I hope one of them becomes my pen pal.

September 3:  "And I Love Her" is number one, and "I'll Cry Instead" is number six. One day until blast off!  Karen and I tried to dye our hair today, but it ended up orange. That's right, Orange. I thought I was going to have to go to Chicago like that, but the lady gave us some stuff to fix it. 

September 4: The day is here at last! I worried the whole trip that I had left my ticket at home. I made several trips back to the trunk of the car to be sure that it was there. Sue and I took sack lunches along to eat on the way so that we could save some money. But I hadn't planned on spending so much money on the tollways. Our motel is really a slick place. It has elevators, air conditioning inevery room, television, and a swimming pool.

The first thing we did after unpacking was hit the newspaper stands to catch up on all the Beatle news. Then we walked to the beach.  Lake Shore Drive baffled us. It took forever to cross. Being hicks from the sticks, we didn't know that there was a bridge we could have walked on.

September 5:  The day is gone, and I want it back. I hope I never forget any details of all that happened. This morning, Sue and I were anxious to go and find the amphitheater, so we got in the car and were on our way quickly. Just as we approached the theater, WLS started playing "Twist and  Shout". I knew then that the day was really here. 

The amphitheater is huge! Already, a group of girls was standing in front of the building. When we got there, it was amusing to me. The girls were camped along the side of the building. They were eating sack lunches, and there were lots and lots of newspapers scattered all about. These girls, too, had been reading about the Beatles, I figured. Only noon, and the show didn't start until 830 that night. Sue and I did not want to be left out of anything, so we decided to join them.

 We rushed back to the motel to get dressed. I had planned to spend hours getting ready for this night, but instead, we took 15 minutes. That's a record for us both!  My hair didn't look the best it could, and my nylons had runs in them, but we hurriedly grabbed our cameras, binoculars, and purses and rushed back to the theater. By that time, there were a lot more people there. I had some nice chats with a few policemen, but we sure didn't see eye to eye on my favorite subject-- the Beatles. 

There are a lot of people there whom we met. I thought it was interesting the way various people dressed. Some girls had regular dress-up clothes like Sue and me. Others had cut-offs, Beatles buttons, and ragged gym shoes. There were girls who had on a lot of leather or suede Beatle hats, dark eyes and black socks.

 Sue and I stayed and talked to various girls in line. We noticed that they were carrying Beatles pennants, and we wanted one. Later, a man came along selling them, so we bought one to match our outfits. I got red. Sue got green.

At about four, Sue and I went across the street to eat. We ordered Beatles burgers and played Beatles records on the jukebox. When we got back, we discovered we had lost our place in line, so we had to go to the end. There was a whole crew of adults trying to maintain some order outside the theater. Blockades were set up all around. Only people with tickets were allowed on that side of the street. Every once in a while, the crowd would start screaming. Someone would think she saw a Beatle, and then everyone would start to get hysterical. 

Once, when everyone was screaming, I moved out of line to see what all the excitement was about. Unfortunately, I stepped over the line we had been warned about. Therefore, it was back to the end of the line for me again. At about five, two rescue trucks came. This amused me because there were still three and a half hours until the performance. They were already anticipating emergencies.

 Finally, about an hour later, the doors were opened.  Sue and I had our first look at the amphitheater. It was certainly nothing fancy, but it was gigantic. We bought a really cool Beatles book in the lobby and then went to our seats. We kept walking closer and closer to the front, and couldn't believe how close our seats were to the stage. The time before the show passed quickly. We talked to strangers and even got a few addresses for pen pals. We took pictures of Ringo drums. Those pictures will always be among my most prized possessions, I'm sure. 

September 7: Well, it's over, and I could just cry. This is something I will never forget for the rest of my life. Sue and I wrote the Beatles' signatures on our arms, and we're telling everyone that The Beatles wrote them. Everyone believes us. I don't know when we'll tell them the truth. 

October 19: The world is a horrible mess. On October 15,  Khrushchev resigned. I don't know whether he resigned or whether he was kicked out, but I think it was the latter. Red China has a nuclear bomb now, so that's another worry. Oh, well, why worry? I mean, if we're going to get blown up, I don't guess there's anything I could do about it. 

October 22: Go west! Beat Central!

 October 25:   I cleaned up my room today and went through my Chicago souvenirs. I just can't believe I have seen the Beatles. I just can't believe it. The Ed Sullivan Show is tonight. The Rolling Stones are on.

November 4:   Jerry and the Pacemakers were on  Shindig tonight. Jerry monkeyed at the end.

 December 30: Well, there are only 26 hours left in 1964. I will put this diary away in a secret hiding place. This has truly been the year of the Beatles. Things will change. We will all grow up and old, even the Beatles. What will our futures hold?

Shopping in Chicago

 

When Paul and Linda were in Chicago for "Broadstreet" publicity, the left their hotel and went on a shopping trip with young James.  One fan looked in the shopping bags that Paul was carrying and noticed that James had gotten a GI Joe.   Go Joe! 

Harrison and Co. Come Together at the End

 

George performing during the evening show in Chicago on November 30, 1974

Harrison and Co. Come Together at the End But It's Just Too Late

By Lynn Van Matre

The Chicago Tribune

December 2, 1974 

    This has been a year, folks for rock reincarnations.  As 1974 opened, Bob Dylan came back from the recording dead. This summer saw Crosley Stills, Nash, and Young reunited, and Eric Clapton creeped back. And as the year drew to a close, singer-songwriter-guitarist George Harrison, set out on the road, the first of the Beatles to do so, and the first of the once Fab Four to perform in Chicago since the middle 1960s and so on. Blah, blah, blah

   And blah, it was pretty much how expectations regarding George's two Saturday shows at the Chicago Stadium had been running for anyone who'd been keeping track of his tour progress along the way. Harrison was hoarse, the reviews had run; reportedly, keyboard man Billy Preston had more than once stolen the show, and Harrison was unhappy about it. 

    But Saturday night at the stadium, Harrison seemed happy enough to have Preston at his side, show-stealing and all. And he should have been, for it was only during the last half hour of the show after Preston had rocked things up and danced up a mild storm that Harrison himself finally took off, and the whole thing came together in a finale that saved the evening and almost made up for what had gone before. And that took some doing.

     After Harrison and a heavyweight backup group that included Preston on keyboards and a dynamite horn section headed by Tom (LA Express), Scott finished "My Sweet Lord."  In fact, there wasn't an unlighted match in the place. A predictable enough response, of course, given Harrison's credentials. In fact, for a lot of people, just seeing some ex-Beetle in the rather wooden and wan flesh was enough. But the tribute was not wholly undeserved because the show's last few numbers really cooked, despite Harrison throwing a big dose of religion ranting before that, things scarcely simmered. 

    Harrison has long been an admirer of sitar player Ravi Shankar, and most of the first half of the show consisted of Shankar leading his percussive Indian orchestra in ragas and religious paeans while Harrison served as little more than side man. One of the hymns to Krishna, "I am Missing You," was intriguing, but after a while, the music began to merge into dreary sameness and became merely something to sit through while waiting for Harrison himself to step out.

     But Harrison never proved to be much of a showman dressed in a white shirt and upgraded bib overalls with picture buttons of gurus pinned on (like all the big rock stars turned religious fanatics favor); he looked tired and sounded it. He also sounded painfully, ruinously hoarse. Harrison may very well have been tired, having gone through the same show only hours earlier, but the double workout didn't seem to have affected Preston at all. He was even able to dance, which brought one of the biggest hands of the evening. The applause signs weren't even needed.

     Yes, the applause signs throughout the show as Harrison and crew slogged through selections from his forthcoming Dark Horse album and such oldies as John Lennon's "In My Life," some kids kept busy skittering around backstage holding corny hand-lettered signs along the lines of "Bless Billy Preston," "What a horn section" and the ever popular "applause." Apparently, someone thought George could use a little help. A case of throat lozenges and some judicial pruning of the Shankar portion of the concert might have been a more practical panacea for the proceedings.