Fact #62846
When:
Short story:
The largest crowd so far for a rock show, 56,000 fans, sees The Beatles play live at Shea Stadium, New York City, USA. The audience includes Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones, who also hang out with the group at their hotel. Also among the crowd is aspiring folk-rock guitarist and singer Gram Parsons.
Full article:
Sid Bernstein (promoter) : We spent weeks drawing up plans, as if they were battle plans, trying to ensure their safety. You're not allowed to land on the field at Shea Stadium, which would have been the best way. So we had the helicopter bring them in to a marina.
George Harrison : When we got on the helicopter at Wall Street, and instead of going right to the show, the fella started going 'round, zooming 'round the stadium saying, "Look at that! Isn't it great, fellas!" And, "Look at the World's Fair, and look at this", and we're hanging on there by the skin of our teeth, thinking, y'know, let's get out of it.
Alf Bicknell (Beatles chauffeur) : We flew over it by helicopter several times because the original plan was to fly into the centre of the stadium in the helicopter but the police said no, it was too dangerous.
Bob Whitaker (photgrapher) : The journey to the Shea had to be organised like a military operation. We flew by helicopter from the top of the Pan-Am building in Manhattan and transferred to an armoured Wells Fargo truck near the stadium. It had no windows and the kids were hammering on the outside and rocking it. The noise was deafening, the screaming and screeching was really terrifying. At one stage we thought the truck was going to tip over and we were all going to get dragged out and torn to pieces.
George Harrison : They wouldn't allow us to drop right into the arena, and so we had to land on the roof of the World Fair. From there we went - uh, into the stadium in a Wells Fargo armoured truck. That was good! I didn't think Wells Fargo were still going, actually. Thought the Indians got 'em all years ago.
Sid Bernstein : The armoured car picked them up at the marina and brought them in the back door of the stadium. The Doors opened and closed real quick and it was just when it was time for them to go on … I asked Ed Sullivan, who was a good friend, to introduce them. I would have liked to reserve that pleasure for myself but I felt that Ed, being the good friend and showman that he was, should do it.
Murray Kaufman : The stage was set up around second base at Shea Stadium … you had a mixture of executives and children of rich people who used all kinds of influence to get good seats.
Alf Bicknell : Prior to the show starting Mal said we had to get all four guitars onto the stage before the band. So I took two and Mal took two and we went through the tunnel, and when they saw us, that sound of the screaming was incredible. And just for the guitars. It was exciting, and I was terrified I might fall or something. I put them by the stage and went back to the dressing room to be with them, and when I came out with them the sound was so much louder than it had been before. I couldn't believe it.
Sounds Incorporated were on before the Blues I think were there. Mary Wells. Beatles and The Moody Blues.
John St John (guitarist, Sounds Incorporated ) : You just couldn't imagine how loud the crowds were. I could barely hear myself on stage.
George Harrison (guitarist, The Beatles] : Although, in the film, we look very casual when we're lying around waiting to go on, we were very nervous, with that mixture of excitement and anticipation with the biggest crowd that had ever gathered in history.
Murray Kaufman : Well, the time came for The Beatles to be introduced and they came on … it was a combination of a snake pit and General Hospital all going on at the same time.
George Harrison : It was such a screaming crowd, and it was such a long way to get to the stage, and we were all very nervous.
John St John Lennon : When The Beatles went on, it was even more deafening. You've never heard anything like it.
Sid Bernstein : I guess we didn't lick the audio problem because you could not hear too much of what they were singing over the screaming. There was so much screaming and heightened emotion. But just being there was important. For the kids, for those us associated with the concert, it was an historic moment. Just being there was being part of history.
George Harrison : Once we got out there and got on stage and started doing it, it became apparent we were doing it for our own amusement – because nobody could hear a thing.
Alf Bicknell : I stood at the side of the stage and I watched Brian Epstein's face. He stood gazing around him, he was so excited. We all were. It must have been one of the most exciting moments in musical history up to that time. Nobody had ever seen a crowd that size.
John Lennon : We did I'm Down, so I, y'know, 'cause I did the organ on the record, I decided to play it onstage. It's the first time - I didn't really know what to do, 'cause I felt naked without a guitar, so I was doing all Jerry Lee, I was puttin' me foot on it, and Paul - and George couldn't play for laughing. Y'know, I was doing it for a laugh.
Murray Kaufman : I went under the stands, and it was as if I were in a disaster area. The New York police and special police were carrying girls out in dead faints, others in hysteria, screaming and thrashing around. There must have been over 300 or 400.
Sid Bernstein : I had met The Rascals in the summer of '65. I put their name up on the scoreboard - 'The Rascals are coming! The Rascals are coming!' A lot of people who hadn't seen pictures of them thought they were a black group. I sensed something big about them.
Dino Danelli (drummer, Young Rascals) : We got launched by that show, because Sid Bernstein was our manager, and he arranged for our name to be flashed up during The Beatles performance on a huge electronic signboard. When Brian Epstein saw it, he came over started choking Sid. He was screaming, 'Get that fucking thing off the board now! Get it off!' It did the trick though, because we started getting offers the next day, and I think we were signed by Atlantic Records about a week later.
Sid Bernstein : The minute they'd finished, off they went into the car, and out the back door, without incident. Over 55,000 people saw that show. We took $304,000, the greatest gross ever in the history of show business.
Derek Johnson (news editor, New Musical Express] : By the end, many fans had been felled by hysteria and heat exhaustion. Ambulances were summoned to ferry them to hospital, and I heard Paul say, 'How the hell are we going to get out of here?'
John gave me a fifty dollar bill and told me to give it to one of the ambulance drivers. So the boys scrambled into an ambulance which joined the convoy heading for the hospital and nobody realised they had gone.
Alf Bicknell : At times like that we had to watch tv afterwards to find out what actually happened because your mind was on the job while it was actually happening. I must have stood at the side of the stage through 150 concerts with The Beatles, and each time the excitement was there as soon as they went into Long Tall Sally or whatever.
George Harrison : When I look at the film, we were just doing our - y'know, we - we had a good time. We tried to have a good time, but the show we did was for ourselves. And, uh, those people were sort of miles away. And they were doing their own scene. Y'know, the audience were all buzzing away and leaping up and down doing all that. And we were just playing loud.
But the sound was always bad, and we'd just be joking to each other, to keep ourselves amused, and it was very impersonal, and got - and not only that, with - there were so many police and kids and flying around.
(Sources : not known)
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George Harrison : When we got on the helicopter at Wall Street, and instead of going right to the show, the fella started going 'round, zooming 'round the stadium saying, "Look at that! Isn't it great, fellas!" And, "Look at the World's Fair, and look at this", and we're hanging on there by the skin of our teeth, thinking, y'know, let's get out of it.
Alf Bicknell (Beatles chauffeur) : We flew over it by helicopter several times because the original plan was to fly into the centre of the stadium in the helicopter but the police said no, it was too dangerous.
Bob Whitaker (photgrapher) : The journey to the Shea had to be organised like a military operation. We flew by helicopter from the top of the Pan-Am building in Manhattan and transferred to an armoured Wells Fargo truck near the stadium. It had no windows and the kids were hammering on the outside and rocking it. The noise was deafening, the screaming and screeching was really terrifying. At one stage we thought the truck was going to tip over and we were all going to get dragged out and torn to pieces.
George Harrison : They wouldn't allow us to drop right into the arena, and so we had to land on the roof of the World Fair. From there we went - uh, into the stadium in a Wells Fargo armoured truck. That was good! I didn't think Wells Fargo were still going, actually. Thought the Indians got 'em all years ago.
Sid Bernstein : The armoured car picked them up at the marina and brought them in the back door of the stadium. The Doors opened and closed real quick and it was just when it was time for them to go on … I asked Ed Sullivan, who was a good friend, to introduce them. I would have liked to reserve that pleasure for myself but I felt that Ed, being the good friend and showman that he was, should do it.
Murray Kaufman : The stage was set up around second base at Shea Stadium … you had a mixture of executives and children of rich people who used all kinds of influence to get good seats.
Alf Bicknell : Prior to the show starting Mal said we had to get all four guitars onto the stage before the band. So I took two and Mal took two and we went through the tunnel, and when they saw us, that sound of the screaming was incredible. And just for the guitars. It was exciting, and I was terrified I might fall or something. I put them by the stage and went back to the dressing room to be with them, and when I came out with them the sound was so much louder than it had been before. I couldn't believe it.
Sounds Incorporated were on before the Blues I think were there. Mary Wells. Beatles and The Moody Blues.
John St John (guitarist, Sounds Incorporated ) : You just couldn't imagine how loud the crowds were. I could barely hear myself on stage.
George Harrison (guitarist, The Beatles] : Although, in the film, we look very casual when we're lying around waiting to go on, we were very nervous, with that mixture of excitement and anticipation with the biggest crowd that had ever gathered in history.
Murray Kaufman : Well, the time came for The Beatles to be introduced and they came on … it was a combination of a snake pit and General Hospital all going on at the same time.
George Harrison : It was such a screaming crowd, and it was such a long way to get to the stage, and we were all very nervous.
John St John Lennon : When The Beatles went on, it was even more deafening. You've never heard anything like it.
Sid Bernstein : I guess we didn't lick the audio problem because you could not hear too much of what they were singing over the screaming. There was so much screaming and heightened emotion. But just being there was important. For the kids, for those us associated with the concert, it was an historic moment. Just being there was being part of history.
George Harrison : Once we got out there and got on stage and started doing it, it became apparent we were doing it for our own amusement – because nobody could hear a thing.
Alf Bicknell : I stood at the side of the stage and I watched Brian Epstein's face. He stood gazing around him, he was so excited. We all were. It must have been one of the most exciting moments in musical history up to that time. Nobody had ever seen a crowd that size.
John Lennon : We did I'm Down, so I, y'know, 'cause I did the organ on the record, I decided to play it onstage. It's the first time - I didn't really know what to do, 'cause I felt naked without a guitar, so I was doing all Jerry Lee, I was puttin' me foot on it, and Paul - and George couldn't play for laughing. Y'know, I was doing it for a laugh.
Murray Kaufman : I went under the stands, and it was as if I were in a disaster area. The New York police and special police were carrying girls out in dead faints, others in hysteria, screaming and thrashing around. There must have been over 300 or 400.
Sid Bernstein : I had met The Rascals in the summer of '65. I put their name up on the scoreboard - 'The Rascals are coming! The Rascals are coming!' A lot of people who hadn't seen pictures of them thought they were a black group. I sensed something big about them.
Dino Danelli (drummer, Young Rascals) : We got launched by that show, because Sid Bernstein was our manager, and he arranged for our name to be flashed up during The Beatles performance on a huge electronic signboard. When Brian Epstein saw it, he came over started choking Sid. He was screaming, 'Get that fucking thing off the board now! Get it off!' It did the trick though, because we started getting offers the next day, and I think we were signed by Atlantic Records about a week later.
Sid Bernstein : The minute they'd finished, off they went into the car, and out the back door, without incident. Over 55,000 people saw that show. We took $304,000, the greatest gross ever in the history of show business.
Derek Johnson (news editor, New Musical Express] : By the end, many fans had been felled by hysteria and heat exhaustion. Ambulances were summoned to ferry them to hospital, and I heard Paul say, 'How the hell are we going to get out of here?'
John gave me a fifty dollar bill and told me to give it to one of the ambulance drivers. So the boys scrambled into an ambulance which joined the convoy heading for the hospital and nobody realised they had gone.
Alf Bicknell : At times like that we had to watch tv afterwards to find out what actually happened because your mind was on the job while it was actually happening. I must have stood at the side of the stage through 150 concerts with The Beatles, and each time the excitement was there as soon as they went into Long Tall Sally or whatever.
George Harrison : When I look at the film, we were just doing our - y'know, we - we had a good time. We tried to have a good time, but the show we did was for ourselves. And, uh, those people were sort of miles away. And they were doing their own scene. Y'know, the audience were all buzzing away and leaping up and down doing all that. And we were just playing loud.
But the sound was always bad, and we'd just be joking to each other, to keep ourselves amused, and it was very impersonal, and got - and not only that, with - there were so many police and kids and flying around.
(Sources : not known)