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Fact #52847

When:

Short story:

When The Beatles, supported by The Ronettes, The Cyrkle, and The Remains play the last gig of their North American tour at Candlestick Park, San Francisco, California, USA, rumours are rife that they will never play live again. Folk singers Joan Baez and Mimi Farina meet The Beatles backstage at this gig.

Full article:

Naomi Marcus (fan) : In 1966 I was 10 years old, a pragmatic fifth-grader. I liked John best. I didn’t hang posters or collect Beatles junk or sigh over their pictures, but I knew the words to all their songs. I loved them, but I was cool.

I had no more thought of trying to get to their San Francisco concert from my Big Sur home than I would have of flapping my arms and flying to the moon. But that July, Joan Baez, a family friend and neighbor for several years, called me with a jolting invitation. She was traveling with the Beatles, she had a ticket for me to the Candlestick concert and, as a special treat, “you’ll probably get to meet them.”

I suffered two harrowing days while my parents debated the wisdom of letting me go off on such a “lunatic venture” (my father’s words). I stamped my foot, raged and pleaded, and eventually persuaded them.

Joan’s sister Pauline and brother-in-law Peyton picked me up for the drive to San Francisco. The concert was in the evening and we arrived at Candlestick in the late afternoon. I remember an unending series of checkpoints, which began when we parked, and rows of very large policemen: “You guys the Baez party? This way, please.”

Our little group was passed from checkpoint to checkpoint like a baton. “The Baez party? Yes, they’re expecting you.”

The stadium was reverberating, already nearly full, as we were led down flights and flights of steps, down to the field and past the stage. Envious fans in the lower rows yelled as we were escorted past them: “Bring me a lock of George’s hair!” “Oh, God! Oh, God! Take me with you!” I kept my eyes on the ground. I couldn’t breathe.

We crossed the field, turned into the dugout and went through an odd-shaped, low door into a maze of winding passageways and corridors. Then, boom, around a bend into a loud, crowded room lined with cubicles, and there stood John Lennon. Pale, bored, he was impatiently answering a reporter’s questions, holding a sneaker in one hand and banging it rhythmically against his other palm. So cool.

Joan swooped us up, gathered me to her and circled the room, introducing me to each member of the band. I was the only kid in the place. John was surrounded, but managed a wave: “Hullo.” Ringo took my hand gravely and said, “How do you do?” Paul tossed the Paul grin my way: “Are you Joan’s little sister, then?” My eyes were two pinwheels.

I suffered two harrowing days while my parents debated the wisdom of letting me go off on such a “lunatic venture” (my father’s words). I stamped my foot, raged and pleaded, and eventually persuaded them.

Joan’s sister Pauline and brother-in-law Peyton picked me up for the drive to San Francisco. The concert was in the evening and we arrived at Candlestick in the late afternoon. I remember an unending series of checkpoints, which began when we parked, and rows of very large policemen: “You guys the Baez party? This way, please.” Our little group was passed from checkpoint to checkpoint like a baton. “The Baez party? Yes, they’re expecting you.”
The stadium was reverberating, already nearly full, as we were led down flights and flights of steps, down to the field and past the stage. Envious fans in the lower rows yelled as we were escorted past them: “Bring me a lock of George’s hair!” “Oh, God! Oh, God! Take me with you!” I kept my eyes on the ground. I couldn’t breathe.

We crossed the field, turned into the dugout and went through an odd-shaped, low door into a maze of winding passageways and corridors. Then, boom, around a bend into a loud, crowded room lined with cubicles, and there stood John Lennon. Pale, bored, he was impatiently answering a reporter’s questions, holding a sneaker in one hand and banging it rhythmically against his other palm. So cool.

Joan swooped us up, gathered me to her and circled the room, introducing me to each member of the band. I was the only kid in the place. John was surrounded, but managed a wave: “Hullo.” Ringo took my hand gravely and said, “How do you do?” Paul tossed the Paul grin my way: “Are you Joan’s little sister, then?” My eyes were two pinwheels.

As flashbulbs popped, I watched the choreographed ease with which the Fab Four draped themselves around every local VIP who wanted a picture taken. Then it hit me with a dull shock: “Joan,” I said plaintively, “no one at school will believe me!” She grabbed Ringo and a photographer and we barely got our picture taken before it was announced that everyone had to leave so the Beatles could dress for their performance.

The press was filing out to the performance area, but we waited in an anteroom where the guitars were set up. I sat on the edge of a long banquet table that was littered with a feast of leftovers. John’s pen-and-ink doodles were all over the white tablecloth, and I saw some of the journalists surreptitiously tearing off pieces as they left. Then the Beatles appeared, dressed in dark suits and boots, and idly began to run through some songs. Ringo’s drums weren’t set up, so he came over to me and held up his hand. “Would you like one of my rings? Now this is a nice one; it’s a whistle ring.” He slipped it off his finger and blew on it and it hummed pleasantly. He dropped it into my palm. While his three mates strummed and sang, he took my hand and helped me jump down. We danced to one song. I’ve racked my brain trying to remember which song, but I was dancing so hard I don’t think I heard anything at all.

Later, Joan slipped into the back room and returned with the shirt John had just been wearing. “Here,” she said, smiling, “another keepsake.” He saw, and he winked. John Lennon was about to sing for a million hysterical people and he winked at me. “So, who are you really? Not her sister, now, are you?”

Presently, they slung their guitars over their shoulders and we all were escorted through the maze toward the stage. I watched Ringo (my new favorite) make a wrong turn and head away from our procession. I uttered my one word of the night — “Hey” — and he turned around, grinning sheepishly. They looked like a chain gang as they trudged single file along the corridor, adjusting guitar straps and jacket cuffs, just going to work. It seemed sad and tedious, another stop on their long and winding road. But it would be the end of the journey. After the Candlestick show, the Beatles never again performed together onstage.

When we emerged onto the field, the band clambered up the stairs and hit the stage running. We positioned ourselves below them, leaning against the platform on which the stage was built. Spotlights dipped and whizzed around. People were leaping from their seats, rushing the stage like kamikaze pilots, and bulky policemen were thudding into them and carting them off. It was a great spectacle. The music began, drowning and deafening me. The rhythm was all over us. Cake boxes with whole cakes in them landed near us, followed by stuffed animals, candy and jelly beans. Joan held me, shielding me with her arms. “Oh, my God!” I remember her saying. “Your father is going to kill me.” Time passed in a roar. I don’t remember how we left the stadium. I don’t remember how I got to the car. I remember falling asleep in Joan’s perfumed lap, with John Lennon’s sweaty shirt tucked around me, as we sailed down 101 in her cozy black Jaguar, going home.
(Source : feature in Image magazine, San Francisco Examiner, 11 Aug 1991).

Tony Barrow (The Beatles' press officer) : There was nothing special about that last show. Indeed it was probably one of the most ordinary concerts they ever gave. It lasted thirty minutes and musically it was far from the best performance they'd given. It was the end of a very tiring tour.

There was the feeling that it was the last concert although it was never announced as such. Certainly it was Brian Epstein's hope that he could persuade them to do more shows. But that was the night Paul McCartney requested that I record the concert as a souvenir for him, something we'd never bothered to do on any other tour, so he obviously saw it as an occassion. It was also the night that George Harrison sank down in the seat next to me on the plane and said, 'Well, that's it; I'm not a Beatle any more'.

George didn't mean that he intended leaving the band, only that The Beatles, to him, had become synonymous with Beatlemania and, as far as he was concerned, that was all over. What he really meant was that he wanted them to get down to some serious work as a recording band. And, of course, Sgt. Pepper was the outcome of that.
(Source : interview by Steve Turner, Q Magazine)

John Lennon : We were all so pressurised that there was hardly any chance of expressing ourselves, especially working at that rate, touring continually, and always kept in a cocoon of myths and dreams. When you are Caesar and everyone is saying how wonderful you are and giving you all the goodies and girls it's pretty hard to break out of that, to say, 'I don't want to be King. I want to be real.'
(Source - interview, 1971)

Andrew Loog Oldham (manager, Rolling Stones) : Brian (Epstren) did more than manage the Beatles, to him it was akin to a marriage. The Beatles had, to that extent, been unfaithful to the marriage. And the new adventures of the Beatles had to have thrown Brian for somewhat of a loop. The foundation - touring - was no more. Difficult for Brian, who lived for seeing his boys from the wings.
(Source : interview in Uncut magazine - November, 2017)