Standing with Ringo

 

Charles O. Finley

 

Arrowhead Stadium

 May 31, 1993

Hey Hey Hey -- Wings in Kansas City

 

I didn't see another concert until Kansas City which was really decided at the last minute when my mom (who lives in Kansas) offered me a ticket!  Somehow she'd managed to get a couple of 2nd row loge seats (which were actually sitting on the floor - they were added rows) equal with 7th-row seats so I couldn' stay no to that!  I arrived in K.C. early on the morning of the 29th after having taken another night flight and was met at the airport by my parents.  After catching a few hours of sleep once again, we drove into downtown K.C. in search of Kemper Arena.  We found it without much trouble but never did find the airport Paul was supposed to be arriving at. 

The concert in my opinion was the best of the 8 I saw so I'm not going to complain much anyway!  My mom went with me and came out wishing she could make Denver, too.  So goes the power of McCartney charisma.  It brought to mind the poem I've often read with the lines "Tossing his hair, grinning his grin, waving his hand, moving his guitar, until you couldn't breathe, right .... and your mother looked strained and never again asked you what you saw in him."  From the minute Paul walked onto stage everyone, at least in our area, stood and so we remained standing for the entire show.  The crowd absolutely loved him and wasn't shy in letting him know, which is what he really picks up on, so I think that's why he put on such an exceptional performance.  He had on the same outfit as in Houston, only minus the necklaces and with blue satin lapels instead of pink.   Linda had on a blue jersey dress which had gathered around the hips, a scarf around her neck, and knee-hi boots.  At one point during the first part of the concert, Paul started singing "Kansas City" which, of course, got a big rise out of the crowd.  Just before "I've Just Seen a face" started Paul reverted to his English introduction of the song by saying "does anybody like a bit of skiffle?"  Then catching himself and observing the crowd's perplexity, he added, "Don't' know what it is, do you? Well, it's country style."  

Then after the song, he kicked his foot high in the air which he also did after several of the rockers.  As the concert progressed, I kept noticing the sweat on his face -- his hair which was all fluffy on top and parted -- his knees and the Beatles smile he kept flashing to the audience.  At moments like that it was like having a '66 Beatles film superimposed over this live '76 concert  After another song, "Lady Madonna" I believe Paul especially hyper -- saluting, giving the peace sign, the thumbs-up sign, thrusting his fist in the air, and scratching his head.  Then whenever he'd switch from piano to bass or vice versa he'd turn around and say "Hi" to the audience in the back of the stage.  He also had a habit that night of pulling his pants up and tucking his shirt in which wasn't exactly a repulsive sight.  By the time the concert was nearing it's end, his air was absolutely soaking wet.  what a performance he had given and how the crowd had appreciated it!  It was like a mutual love affair Paul's love of performing versus the crowd's love of him as a performer.  Paul and Linda walked off stage with their arms around each other after the first encore and then after the 2nd encore someone threw a little whit heat on stage which he proceeded to put on and it was just too cute for words!  

After the concert as I waited for some of the crowd to clear out I saw Madeleine and a few minutes later Barb, Joanne, and Richie so we talked for a while and then we went outside to wait for Paul to leave.  Shortly before Paul came out, Barb pointed out Robert Ellis to me so I went over to say hi to him and was greeted with a kiss, which sort of took me by surprise.  IT was nice talking to him and having at least someone acknowledge that I was remembered.  It was more than I could say for the rest of Paul's entourage!  Soon after I returned, Paul's limo drove out and as flashbulbs went off, I was able to catch a clear view of him smiling and waving as he tried to look in all directions.  After he'd gone I never saw people clear out so quickly.  

Flashbulb photo in Kansas City

September 17, 1964

The Beatles and Neil

Kansas City

Photo from Bob Bonis 

John thinks about playing an extra song......

Hey Hey Hey Hey---another Beatles press conference

Hey Hey Hey Hey

Photo by Phillip Hoffman 

Fan taken photo of the Beatles performing in Kansas City in 1964.   I have never seen a photo that showed the entire set up of the stage before, so I found this interesting.  

They got some crazy little women there

The Beatles were going to Kansas City and the fan remember

photo by Bob Bonis

photo by Bob Bonis

I was a Senior at Paseo High School and a friend going to college at KCJC got us tickets…we sat waaaaay back but it was electrifying!!! The next day I was hoarse and couldn’t speak from all the screaming and my upper legs were black n blue from slapping them to make noise when my hands gave out.  – Penny S.

I sat in the front row with my date and my stepmother. My Dad was the Manager of WHB who supplied the MC.  I remember a girl behind us who kept screaming “Let’s go Ringo…Let’s go Ringo” until my stepmom turned to her and indignantly asked her, “Just where would you like him to go?” I think that was the end of her cries but it didn’t really matter the noise was so loud no one in the good seats could hear the band anyway! Was a great first date though.  --Don L.

“Next to us, there was a teenage couple with the girl shaking uncontrollably. The boyfriend had her sitting on his lap in hopes of calming her down. This didn’t work. “His next idea was to offer her a cigarette. In her agitated state, she promptly ate the cigarette.” –Becky

“I remember my dad driving us to the stadium and making the comment, ‘Don’t act crazy and get your picture in the paper.’ It was a great surprise the next morning when my aunt called and said that my picture was on the front page of The Kansas City Star! Being ‘crazy.’” –Pat

one of these crazy fans must be Pat!

“A plane flew over the stadium, paid for by KMBC, I guess, with a banner or message saying, ‘You are missing the premiere of “Bewitched.”’” –Brent

"The Beatles ordered room service — KC strips. The waiter came back with two autographs on room service checks signed by Paul McCartney. The chef kept one for his kids, and he gave the other to my dad, who surprised me with it the next morning.” –Virginia

“The next day, your body was so sore from all the jumping, and you couldn’t even talk, as your throat was sore, too. When I told my fourth-grade teacher why I had a sore throat, she immediately stood up and told the rest of the class. Thirty other kids wanted to know all about it, so I had to try and stand in front of the class and tell them.” – Tara

“The Beatles scurried around the flat, climbed up the stairs to get in place before the stage could be lit. At that moment, enough flashbulbs from audience cameras went off to light the entire Kansas City Athletics stadium out of total darkness, and it continued throughout the concert.” --Billy

“I was with two friends and we raced to the back of the stadium to see the Beatles depart.  We were too late and all we saw was a security guard with a piece of paper.  It said ‘Beatles please sign here’ at the top, then listed their names, where they signed next to, and at the bottom it said ‘thank you.’ … He proceeded to tear the autographs out and threw the rest of the paper on the ground.

“We walked up the hill really sad at our missed opportunity. Then it dawned on us that the Beatles had touched the paper. We fought each other down the hill after the paper, almost falling as we were all in our ‘high-heeled Beatle boots.’ I was the first one to reach the paper, but knowing how much we all loved the Beatles, tore it into three pieces so we could each have a memory of that night.” – Wendy

“We sat up on the next to last row at the stadium. The stage was so far away that we passed around binoculars so we could get a closer look! We didn’t get the Beatles autographs, but Finley came up to the top bleacher, and we got his autograph.” – Betty (whose 9^th grade teacher bought $2 tickets for the ENTIRE CLASS!!!)

It's just a one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight nine!!!!!

 

I have always loved the whole story of the Beatles performing in Kansas City in 1964.  If I had been around in 1964, and was able to go to a Beatles concert, I most likely would have gone to the Kansas City show.    I thought about that when I traveled the three hours west to see Paul McCartney in Kansas City this past July.

I love how Charles O. Finley was determined to get the Beatles to play in his town.  He thought that the fans deserved it and he was willing to pay whatever it cost to make the Beatles show happen.   And he did it!!!

In hindsight, the Beatles might as well have made the money and played Kansas City because they would not have had the opportunity to sight-see in New Orleans as they had originally planned. 

There is much controversy over if the Beatles played the song "Kansas City/Hey hey Hey" when they were there.   That song would have have been released on any Beatles album, but it was a staple in the Hamburg sets and the Beatles had performed it in the Cavern and on the BBC.   It was a song that they knew well.    If they did perform Kansas City, then they would have cut out "Twist and Shout" from the setlist.    It is funny that after all of these years, people still cannot agree on this. 


There are two books about the Beatles in Kansas City.   The first one  was published quite awhile ago and it is called Beatles '64 Going' to Kansas city by Jospeh Tunzin.    It is mostly a CD that has the press conference on it, but there is also a booklet that has photos and information.    The other book is called Kansas City Meets the Beatles by Gard Murtha.   This book was published in 2013.    It has a lot of information taken from newspaper articles and first hand accounts including the story behind this piece of a curtain that one fan took after the show.

KC press conference

The Beatles with Pattie Weinrich

photo by Ray Corey

To read an account of a fan who was at the press conference in Kansas City--read this account from Carol Mitchell.  

http://www.meetthebeatlesforreal.com/2012/05/kansas-city-here-we-come.html

Police hold tide of Beatlemania

Police Hold Tide of Beatlemania

By Robert K. Sanford

The Morning Kansas City Times

September 18, 1964

When the announcer said, “The Beatles!” and the four British singers bounced onto the stage a concerted scream rose in Municipal Stadium and hundreds of flashbulbs lit the park like harsh fireflies. 

The scream tore on and on.  The performers, jolly and jaunty, sounded some practice guitar chords, said “Ha” and “Hi” into the microphones and abruptly ripped into a tune called “Twist and Shout.”

The scream, from an audience of 20,280, reached frightening intensity.  A man smoking a cigar in the front row put his hands over his ears and puffed.  The Beatles played for 31 minutes, 12 songs perhaps and only as they left did the screaming die, sinking into a mournful moan.

“They are gone, gone,” a girl said, “I’ll never see them again.”

And so the night of the Beatles, the biggest entertainment promotion in the area in the memory of many of the teenagers who attended came and passed. 

Physically, it was accomplished rather efficiently, with a line of 100 policemen separating the crowd from the bandstand.  No one was hurt.  There were no crushing stampedes, no ugly incidents.

The crowd did not fill the 41,000 seats arranged for the events, but it was a sizable crowd in any estimate, one of the four or five biggest crowds to see the Beatles on their American tour. 

The spectator were from several states, and their cars were directed and their property and limbs protected by about 350 police in the stadium area.  The spectators were admonished several times previous to the Beatles’ appearance to stay in their seats or the show would be stopped. By and large they did.  Only at the end, when the Beatles were rushed from the filed in the black limousine, did a section of several hundred teenage girls rush to the line of policemen.  They yelled goodbye and waved.

One of the quartet raised a hand in farewell in te back window of the car as it sped away.  Then the girls began to cry. 

Charles O. Finley, owner of the Kansas City Athletics and the man who brought the Beatles here for $150,000, lost money.  He did not make a public appearance at the show.  His manager, Pat Friday, gave a check for $25,000 to Children’s Mercy hospital although no profit was made on the venture.

An Athletics officials said ticket sales of about 28,000 were needed to break even.  The gate was estimated at something more than $100,000, but considerably short of the $150,000.

Finley said he was delighted with the performance and that he considered the behavior of Kansas City teenagers indeed commendable.  He praised the work of the police and the U.M.K.C. and Rockhurst college students who acted as ushers. 

So, concerning the physical aspects – the security, the traffic, the crowds, all went well.  Reason prevailed. 

But the event left some of the Beatles followers emotionally torn.  As the crowds left the park, fully 10 minutes after all the shouting, there were groups of exhausted girls still seated in the playing field area and the stand.  They were crying.  Why?

“Because they (The B’s) just left and didn’t say anything,” a girl explained, rubbing her eyes.  “Now they are gone forever.”

“Ah, they’ll be back again,” a policeman said.

“What do you care?”  the girl wept, “You were down in front there and you didn’t care and I was way back here and I couldn’t even get close to them…”

“Now wait a minute, honey,” he said.  “It’s not my fault.”

Then he walked away.

Many of the policemen who manned the barricade in front of the blaring loudspeakers put cotton in their ears.  For others not so well prepared, the sound of the mass scream – a fearful sound because it seems out of control – will linger, not gently, in their memory.

The Beatles music, the incessant beat and the hard blare of electric guitars pushed to volume limits, can be heard on jukeboxes in a hundred thousand joints and drugstores.  The scream had no volume control.

Scarlett Peterson, 14, Topeka, sat on the front row with no shoes and wore a button that said, “I love Paul.” (That’s Paul McCartney.  The others are Ringo Starr, George Harrison and John Lennon).  Why the button?

“Because Paul is left handed like me and plays bass guitar and has brown eyes and black hair.”  With blue-tipped fingernails she pushed back a lock of her blond hair.

“You’ll have to get out of our seats, girls,” a woman said.  “These are our seats.”  Scarlett and her friends walked off, unoffended.

A girl with a legitimate front row seat was Tina Mitchell, 15, of 7205 Flora Avenue, president of the Leabets Beatles spelled inside out), the Kansas City fan club.  She thought the show was grand and she had grand news.

A friend with her, Vicki Mucie, 14, had come into ownership of a cigarette butt that Paul reportedly had smoked at the afternoon press conference downtown.

What was she going to do with it?

“I’m going to frame it along with a jelly bean that John stepped on in Denver when I saw them there.”  It was a yellow jelly bean and the cigarette butt was filter-tipped.

Yes, jelly beans were thrown at the Beatles in their Kansas city performance, too.  Why?  Because the Beatles love jelly beans, silly.

There were stories of great sacrifice and effort among the followers.  Mary Jo Berger, 15, 

Edwardsville, Illinois (Sara’s note—yeah!!!) carried a sign which she tired to show to the Beatles and was told to go back to her seat.   The sign said,

“You’re the greatest

Charlie O.

For you got us

Dear Ringo.

I wish I may

I wish I might

Get to talk to

Him tonight.”

One of Mary Jo’s friends from Edwardsville chose to walk out of the stadium with one shoe on and one shoe off.  Why?

“Because sometime when they were singing I suddenly found my show in my hand.”  The Beatles left the stadium at 9:15 o’clock.  At 11:13 o’clock their airplane left the ground at Municipal Air Terminal on the way to Dallas. 

Most of the time before they left they spent in the plane, passengers in the world of aviation, where, experts tell us, as in all of life, the noise level is increasing every year.

Flash bulb fan photo

Photo by Dana Crick

 

The Kansas City Star online has posted some Beatles memories and photos, including this amazing photo.   Here is what the fan who snapped it had to say about the photo:

In 1964 I was 12 years old and completely captivated by The Beatles. My step father, Paul Sunderland, who was 68 years old at the time, took me and my brother and sister to see the Beatles at Municipal Stadium. We had excellent ground level seats but, my clearest memory is that it was nearly impossible to hear the music over the screaming and shrieking of other young girls. Most members of the audience were standing on their seats, and being small for my age it was difficult to see. I did manage to shoot the two attached photographs with my Kodak Instamatic. In spite of the obstacles it was an absolute thrill to be in the presence of the The Beatles!”DANA CRICK

Most fan taken photos either did not turn out, were blurry, were too far away, or had fans blocking the way.   This photo is a true treat!