Yea Yea Yea They are Here for Concert (1966 Los Angeles

 

Yea Yea Yea: They Are Here For Concert

By Ken Lubas

The Van Nuys News

August 26, 1966

    "Hot" best describes the day, and "frantic" denotes the atmosphere as crowds surged about the Capitol Record Tower in Hollywood last Wednesday evening, awaiting the arrival of rock and roll's young kings, the Beatles. Youngsters and oldsters alike awaited the opportunity to catch a glimpse, and that's all that it was of the shaggy-haired foursome, as the Beatles emerged from the back door of an armored truck and were quickly swept away by security guards to their Hollywood press conference. 

    Revolver, the title for the British foursome's 20th gold record since the Beatles made their U.S. debut in January '64, proved to be the golden word of the evening. Alan W. Livingston, the president of Capitol Records, announced that with the awarding of a gold record for Revolver, their latest album, the Beatles now have a greater number of certified million sellers than any other artist in the history of the Record Industry Association of America. A gold record for a single is given for selling more than 1,000,000 copies. Capitol Record officials estimated the Beatles' separate recordings of either "Yellow Submarine" or "Eleanor Rigby", both on Revolver, will reach the magic mark.

     Sitting before the throng of reporters gathered in the large but, under the circumstances, not too spacious sound studio, Ringo Starr, the drummer, appeared in a blue-and-white polka-dot, high-colored shirt, multicolored sports coat, and blue-and-white striped pants. John Lennon was dressed in a reddish-brown wide-lapel suit and black sweater. Paul McCartney wore white slacks and a gray striped long-sleeve shirt, and George Harrison was in blue jeans, a white silk shirt, and a brown suede jacket.

     Answering questions concerning everything from their latest run-in with religion to future plans, the mopheads flourished their Liverpudlian personalities and aired their views. In reference to the widely quoted article in which Lennon allegedly said the British foursome is more popular than Jesus, Lennon said at the press conference. "I've clarified it about 800 times. I could have said more popular than telly or any other number of things, but they certainly wouldn't have been as good publicity."

     McCartney said bigots took it (the remark) up. He feels the bigots understood the statement to mean, "Ah, he's bound to be arrogant." When asked about reports of Beatles' record burnings, Lennon said Pictures he had seen showed "middle-aged disc jockeys and 12-year-olds burning a bunch of LP covers."

     When asked if they thought all the publicity hurt their image, all agreed."Our image is what we read in the newspaper." Elaborating on the subject, McCartney said, "We know our real image, which is nothing like our picture image."

     Turning to the subject of their expected money from the current American tour. The Beatles don't have time to worry about such matters, Lennon said, "If we worried about it, we'd be nervous wrecks."

     About future plans, the group is considering a script for a new movie, but couldn't give any details of pending production. Lennon explained his appearance in the movie How I Won the War came about while he was alone on a holiday. "They just asked me, and I said yes." When asked what his favorite American singing groups were, Lennon said the Byrds, the Mamas and the Papas, and the Lovin' Spoonful. 

    Starr explained to disappointed reporters that he doesn't carry pictures of his baby in his wallet, or any other pictures for that matter. Harrison, the quiet Beatle, was overshadowed by his counterparts during the meet. 

'    When earlier asked about politics, Lennon said, "Politics? They have no message for me, nor for any of us. I haven't got much time for politicians. I've never bothered to vote. The bomb? Nuclear disarmament? Well, like everyone else, I don't want to end up a festering heap, but I don't stay up nights worrying. I'm preoccupied with my life, not death."

     The Beatles, who were in Southern California for a performance at Dodger Stadium Sunday evening, said their most disappointing tour was in Manila, Philippines, last month, where they were booed as they left the islands.

    Following the conference, the Beatles, surrounded by security guards, bounded for the nearby armored truck and were mobbed by about 500 hysterical teenage girls. Guards surrounded the truck, and once their valuable cargo was safely enclosed, they rode through the Capitol parking lot on the rear and front bumpers to prevent the girls from hanging on. As the vehicle departed into the sunset, heading toward the Hollywood Hills, many of the excited youths leaped onto motorcycles to follow the group back to their residence there.

A happy day for a few fans

 

Hanging out in the Big Apple

 August 25, 2011 

New fashion

 

New Wilbury: John Candy

 

The Agony and the Ecstasy (New York City 1966)

 

The Agony and the Ecstasy

By Anthony Burton

The Daily Mail

August 24, 1966

    The Beatles stepped onto the turf of Shea Stadium last night, and the world went mad. Kids in tight hip huggers, kids in miniskirts, kids in poor boy sweaters, 45,000 of them took a deep breath and started screaming and squealing and screeching and sobbing till the whole stadium seemed to rock. 

    It couldn't get any worse, you thought, trying to shield your eardrums, but it did. When the Beatles climbed on the platform and started to play to the packed stands, Ringo, John, Paul, and George attacked their instruments with the dedication of men earning hundreds of dollars for every note they played. But the kids screamed even louder. It seemed a pity. The kids were making too much noise to hear their idols.

     Some of the kids started jumping onto the turf in an attempt to get closer to the kings of kiddydom. Cops headed them off and carried them away. More than 100 police reinforcements, together with policewomen, streamed onto the field and confronted the stands. After 30 minutes, it was all over. The Beatles raced to a station wagon and drove off into the night. From Flat Bush Avenue and Columbus Avenue, from East End Avenue and Park Avenue, the hordes of kids had poured into the stadium, paying an average of $4 for the privilege of adoring the Beatles in person. Waving above their heads were such bannered battle cries as "Ringo is sexy" and "America loves you."

     It was just like their earlier visits, except that they seemed smaller, as if they had been tamed. Their eyes, sad spaniel eyes under the long fringes, were haunted now by the ghost of a hick disc jockey. The kids screamed, and the money poured in, but it could never be the same. The Beatles would never be able to forget that they had bent the knee and apologized to the hick disc jockey from a state notorious even in the South for its bigotry and racism, and then they had suffered the humiliation of having their apology patronizingly accepted. 

    The sad irony was that when John Lennon said the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, he was touching on a serious issue. That, of course, is fatal in the world of Good Guys and Murray the K and transistors. You can be imprudent about the Queen, but you can't get away with trying to discuss a serious subject. That's not cool, baby. 

    And so Lennon presented his glass jaw to people who would rather attack the innocent who raise a problem than the problem itself. It's easier. They denounced the satanic foursome and burned their records. Even then, the Beatles could have saved themselves by one of those flip remarks with the Liverpool twang around the edges. But they were older now, and corruption inevitably comes with age, and there were all those records to be sold and all that money to be collected. 

    Lennon became the penitent. He announced he was sorry he had ever made the remark. Few popular idols can pin down the exact moment when they reached the pinnacle and then began the long slide, the downfall. The Beatles call it into obscurity, but Lennon and the others will be able to do just that. It will take years to complete the slide, and lots more money will roll in. But when it's done, they'll look back up the slope and see that it began August 11, 1966, the day Lennon tucked the flip remark into his cheek and instead pleaded to an Alabama disc jockey that he had been misinterpreted. 

    Well, it was fun while it lasted. And there's always Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones. Can you imagine him apologizing? Give him time, baby. Give him time.

Armor-Plated Beatles Brave Shea (1966 New York City)

 

Armor Plated Beatles Brave Shea

By Edward Benes & Richard Henry

The Daily News

August 24, 1966

    Beatlemania hit New York again yesterday. It was like war games, especially the evening's climax. The Beatles invaded Shea Stadium in an armored car, and then all hullabaloo broke loose. As in almost all war games, there was lousy weather, hot and humid when it wasn't raining. Nevertheless, armies of young people surged bravely to and fro all over town, sinking their quarry, the mop-top quartet of rock and rollers. 

    Innocent citizens lost their dignity in shoving throngs, or had their eardrums dented by volleys of shrieks. Battalions of cops and teams of medics were on alert at Shea for bulging bedlam. There was flag waving by youngsters in the stadium who flaunted banners proclaiming their adoration of Ringo, or Paul, or John, or George (the beloved Mets were forgotten last night.)

     There was resort to a decoy unit and a sneak sortie to get the Beatles safely out of their midtown hotel when it came time to go to Shea. The ruse worked like this: At H hour, 5:40 p.m. two limousines pulled in front of the Hotel Warwick's main entrance on 54th Street near Sixth Avenue, and the hundreds of fans behind barricades riveted their eyes hungrily on the hotel door, but around the corner on Sixth, a motorcade of four limousines, one police prow car, and one unmarked cop car pulled up to another hotel entrance. The Beatles dashed out with their entourage and grinned to sharp-eyed fans across the street before ducking into the cars. Only two young girls managed to break free from the barricades and get close enough to snap pictures.

     A group of construction men, seated on the back of a truck, were more interested in the girls than the Beatles. Some customers inside a drugstore looked curiously out the window, and then the Beatles took off. But at the Queen's Safety District Police Station and the Old World's Fairgrounds, they shifted from their limousines to Wells Fargo red armored cars. A squad of sweating cops clung to the armor-plated vehicles like blue-clad leeches. The time was 7:30 p.m.

    Before the Beatles went on stage, four recording acts- the Ronettes, the Cyrkles [sic], the Remains, and Bobby Hebb thumped and chanted to amuse approximately 45,000 music lovers, who filled all but Shea's upper tiers. As 200 city cops and 250 private police patrolled, as three first aid stations were manned on each balcony as a doctor stood nervously at an Elmhurst City Hospital ambulance. The noise and the tension swelled, but there was no reports of injury. 

    And then.....and then ......at 9 p.m. Liverpool's contribution to modern culture emerged on stage. The Beatles themselves! GAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! The concert shrieked from 45,000 throats was deafening. 1000s of girls and boys and little kids and young mothers and fathers stood to get a look and stayed standing for an hour while the Beatles performed before taking off for Los Angeles. 

    Neither the standing nor the presence of young parents was surprising. Hundreds, including housewives escorting their children, had been standing for hours yesterday afternoon outside the Warwick. 500 stood hoping to see the Beatles. Outside Shea, 2000 hopefuls waited. 

    Two housewives from Astoria, Queens, Mrs. Betty Kristen Noble and Mrs. Elsie Robbins, showed up each with a young daughter at 10 a.m. They explained that they did not want the girls to go alone. Two other housewives from Saddle River, New Jersey, showed up with five girls. The housewives, Mrs. Ralph Berry and Mrs. Timothy Tamblin, arrived at 4 p.m. to beat the traffic. Mrs. Berry and Mrs. Tamblin both said they were not dragged there by the girls. "We love the Beatles ourselves", they said.

     The youngsters who waited outside the hotel got no glimpse of the mop tops during the day. The quartet remained in its 28th-floor suite, resting up for the big doings last night. 

Fan's Dad as the Luck

Patricia Donovan, 16, a Beatle-loving Brooklynite, probably got all upset with her dad, Howard, for not taking her to work with him last night instead of letting her go with her mother to the Beatles' concert. Donovan had bought concert tickets for his daughter and wife and himself, and gave his own ticket to his father-in-law when he suddenly was called into work. But it turned out that on the job he drove the Beatles to Shea Stadium in an armored car.

A Family Walk

 August 1976

Dogs Meet the Beatles...For Real!

 

Stop to chat