Fans remember the Beatles at Balboa

I was at Balboa stadium that night !!! $5.50 for a 5th row seat !!! My parents dropped me off, all alone.. Bell bottom pants , crop top and Beatle boots.. Wow, what a night to remember.. the beginning of the Beatles Revolution !!! –Suzanne

I was there with my older sister and family friends.  I was only 8 years old.  I remember being over a football field away and the screaming girls pulling up grass like it was walked on by the Fab Four.  I may have been the youngest fan there! Crazy!!  -- John

I was there! Won tickets on the radio and mom said no! You can't go! I snuck out and it was definately worth the 2 weeks restriction I got, ha ha!  -anonymous

I was there I was only 14 years old I do remember them I couldn't hear them sing because all the screaming and I remember the tickets were only $5 apiece – Ruben

I was 11 years old when I saw the concert. My father insured KGB radio, and the station manager gave him 1 comp. ticket. We drove down to Balboa Stadium, and my dad stayed in the car and read his newspaper while I went in by myself. I remember the crowd booing the deejay who introduced each act. Finally, the Beatles came out, and I had to stand the whole the time with my fingers in my ears, which helped filter out the screaming. It seemed like 10 minutes to me, and then they were gone from the stage. On my way back to the car, I saw my first "hippie" with long hair, who was being handcuffed by the police. It was quite a night. – Larry

Fan remember Portland

“My father bought front row seats.  I wore a dress and specifically added a blue bow on it because I knew Paul liked blue.   By the end of the concert, my whole dress was wet from my tears.   It was total pandemonium but that was the biggest day of my life.” –Marylyn

I was only 8years old but I remember is very clear, I was at the first show with just my sister who was 11 years old, my mom just dropped us off out front and said to meet her back here at the same place after the show.We had the free tickets up in the nose bleed area. The guys were very hard to hear cus of all the girls screaming. The only real song I remember being able to hear was from Ringo Starr, the guys asked us to be quiet and give Ringo a chance to sing one.  -  Scott

The idea of breathing the same air as Paul McCartney was exciting.  Back then, it was still a big deal to drive to go to the Lloyd Center, The Coliseum itself had been open for just five years. We had a sign on our car, 'Paul and Beatles or bust' on I-5.  I think we started screaming from the time we found our seats until it was over– Betty

My mom bought me four tickets as a surprise, and I took my best buddy and our dates.  We were not yet 16 so we were dropped off at the coliseum and then walked home  -- a fairly long walk. – anonymous 

They had to bail on the limousine because, as my grandfather said, there was no way a limo was going to get through Portland with the Beatles in town.  So, they switched them out, put all four of them in my grandfather's police car (MCSDR) and had him run them to the Coliseum or hotel or wherever they were going.  In the back of the police car, one of them ("he wasn't the one with glasses") fired up a joint. My grandfather said "I don't know what's legal in your country, but, I can't have you smoking that in a police car."  He said they put it out and were very polite.    "They were very nice boys." To this day, I have no idea which Beatle rode in the front seat of the patrol car with my grandfather, but, he described them as strikingly-young compared to other huge celebrities like Elvis.

I was there for the afternoon show.  It lasted less than 40 minutes, but it was some of the best "less than 40 minutes" I can recall.  The place was seriously nuts...you really couldn't hear much above the screaming, but that didn't matter.  IT WAS THE BEATLES!  - “Yardbird”

I was there for that afternoon concert. My step-sister had a friend in Salem who couldn't attend (KSLM contest tickets?) and she offered them to my step-sister a few hours before the concert kicked off. My step-sister asked me, a mere 10 year old, if I wanted to go with her to see the Beatles. I said "yes". My dad, her step-dad, drove us up to Portland. It was all quite exciting. Our very first concert!After the opening acts the screaming and crying escalated to a fever pitch. We were surrounded by mostly girls and young women up in the last rows of the Coliseum. Everyone was screaming and crying uncontrollably...including myself. I was swept up in the emotion. Eerie feeling. I have never experienced that since. – anonymous

Fan fondly remember the Beatles at the Met

I was 16 and a devoted Beatles fan when I saw them at Mets Stadium. We had very good seats right in front of one of the monstrous speakers so we heard the music quiet well. It was like having an out of body experience. You just could not believe you were hearing the Beatles live in concert. Paul would wave in our direction and hundreds of girls would literally pass out. Thousands of flash bulbs were going off making the sight absolutely surreal. Seeing the Beatles quite literally changed my life because after that August night me and my mates went back home and started a band and became professional musicians, and I am still playing music to this day. Thank you John, Paul George and Ringo for the music and inspiration you have given to me and to millions. – Doug

My two cousins and I went to The Beatles concert on August 21st,1965.We sat in the 1st deck, section 5,row 17,seat 6. I was 17 years old. We enjoyed the concert so much!. We screamed threw the whole concert and it was hard to hear from all the other screaming fans.My oldest brother had bought me the ticket to see the concert. I was a night I will never forget. I still have the ticket stub to this day. – Anonymous

I was a Bloomington Police Officer and part of the personal body guard attached to the Beatles at Met Stadium, Aug. 21 , 1965. I got all four of their autographs while riding with in a laundry truck to their Minneapolis hotel. Still have them. – Butch

"It was just so much fun to be with so many people who loved the Beatles just as much as I did." –Carol

“When they came out we were just crazy nuts.  "Everybody just screamed from the beginning to the end -- you could barely hear the music." – Candy

"Our whole section would hold Paul's picture up, and he would nod to us,"We went through all of them. We'd get a little nod or they'd tip their guitar." – Mary Kay

I remember we sat through what seemed liked hundreds of opening acts, even though there was probably only three,” she said. And then when the Beatles finally came on, “it was so quick. Only about a half-hour. The only song I remember seeing is ‘I’m Down.’ ”—Kathy

“You could hardly see them, and there wasn't a sound system like there is now, so you know, you just kind of knew you were there and you were part of the experience." --  Helain

Barb still has her ticket

Barb Fenick is a well-known name here at Meet the Beatles...for Real.    Barb and her fanzine, the Write Thing was the inspiration for me to have this blog.    I tried to take the fan community she has established through The Write Thing and turn it into a 21st century version.     I have never met Barb nor I have ever spoken to her in any way, but I have just so much respect for her.   I think if I ever did meet her,  it would be like meeting a celebrity to me.    Without Barb this blog would have exist and I just really owe her a lot for doing the ground breaking work in focusing on the Beatles' fans in the 1970's and 1980's. 

Anyhow---a wonderful piece was written about her by Jon Beam at the Star Tribune and I really wanted to share it all with you.  

Barb Fenick still has her ticket stub, the Sunday Minneapolis Tribune from Aug. 22, 1965, and all kinds of magazine clippings.

“I was obsessed about the Beatles,” she said. “I wouldn’t have missed that concert for the world. It was fun. It was disappointing, too, because we weren’t that close to them. I was sitting in the front row, but it didn’t make much difference because they were on second base. My goal was to get closer.”

She did. First at a concert in Chicago, then outside Abbey Road studio, where the Beatles were recording in London in 1969. She met all four Mop Tops and even went to Paul McCartney’s house once.

Fenick was so obsessed that in 1966, at age 15, she started a Beatles newsletter using the mimeograph machine at Highland Park High School in St. Paul at the encouragement of a teacher who had a photo of Ringo Starr on his bulletin board. (“He didn’t like the Beatles; he just thought Ringo was funny looking.”) She also started a Beatles fan club: Father Lennon’s Many Children (which was eventually renamed the Write Thing).

For 20 years, Fenick made a living publishing the Write Thing magazine four to six times a year and running the fan club, which peaked at 2,000 members. She even gave copies of her magazine to McCartney in the late ’70s. Over the years, she attended about 40 Beatles conventions and, in the 1980s, published two volumes for “Collecting the Beatles,” a pre-Internet guide to Fab Four collectibles.

In 1986, Fenick stopped writing the Write Thing and practicing Beatlemania. Her second child was born and her Beatles room became her son’s bedroom. After seeing McCartney in concert in 1993, she gave up going to see him.

“The tickets are out of my price range,” said the Roseville grandmother of four. “Plus, I’m spoiled. I saw Wings in England and St. Paul in the front row.”

Memories from the fans in the stands

I was at the 3 o’clock show. Couldn’t hear a thing. Kept looking at the girls wondering why they came –all they did was drown out the music and scream. I heard them sing “Help!” …And I don’t mean the song, just the first word. Oh well, only cost 3 or 4 bucks. – Steve

I was there, too, and it occurs to me that those of us who can say we were there are now all senior citizens! The build-up was agonizing, and there was utter pandemonium when the Beatles' equipment was finally set up and they appeared out of the dugout near third base and walked onto the field. If you were in the stands that evening you could only occasionally hear a few notes of the music when the screaming subsided. I was 14, and it was my first "rock concert." An unforgettable experience. –Stephen

My dad took my sister, my brother and myself there when we were kids. My Dad stayed outside the stadium and said he heard the music fine but it was so noisy we didn't hear much –anonymous

I was there too with my ex.  All I remember was that the Beatles looked really small next to their stage and their HUGE speakers.  We were in the nose bleed seats of course.  The sound was OK but screaming so loud hard to hear. – Julie

I got these tickets at Comisky  for my 16th birthday!! What a shock to see that my Dad only paid $2.50-$3.50 for them! I sat, no, stood screaming, right next to a huge pole with a huge speaker on it....didn't hear much cuz of the screaming but it was Awesome!! One of the best gifts EVER!!! –anonymous