Me too. I was there with two girlfriends. Still friends after all these years, Loading FM Wednesday 27 March Mike Ward Thursday 30 May It was also my 1st concert, I was 8 years old. Bob Wednesday 2 October I was there. It stormed wicked on the way home. It all began in March , during one of hundreds of media interviews the Beatles had given on their rocket ride to international stardom and pop music fame.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. In fact, after that story ran in the U. Nothing seemed to have come of it. However, some of the DATEbook material appears to have been released ahead of newsstand arrival and reached the American media by late July McCartney, for his part, was likely reacting to news reports on civil rights protests in America at that time.
In fact, on an earlier U. It was taken, especially in the South, as an anti-Christian boast. Other radio stations would soon follow suit.
And the anti-Beatles sentiment grew from there. Overnight, it seemed, teenaged Beatles fans in states like Georgia and Mississippi turned out to smash records and throw their Beatles paraphernalia on bonfires. Newspapers throughout the country soon picked up on the story as well.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Capitol Records, which then distributed Beatles recordings in the U. He definitely intended no irreverence. Although many of these stations were in the south, there were boycotts elsewhere as well.
The talks were concerning religion. What he said and meant was that he was astonished that in the last 50 years the Church in England, and therefore Christ, had suffered a decline in interest. He did not mean to boast about the Beatles fame. He meant to point out the Beatles effect appeared to be, to him, a more immediate one upon certainly the younger generation. John is deeply concerned and regrets that people with certain religious beliefs should have been offended.
Epstein: This is highly unlikely. When I leave here, I have a meeting with several of the promoters who are anxious that the concerts should not be cancelled, at all. Meanwhile, in Alabama two days later, on August 8th, , The Daily Gleaner of Birmingham published the following notice:.
Yet the U. August AAP-Reuter wire story about Pennsylvania legislator who sought to ban Beatles music and performances in the state via a proposed resolution. In Boston, too, state representative Charles Iannello, a Democrat drafted a petition to be offered in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, for the city of Boston to revoke the Beatles permit for their scheduled August 18th show at the Suffolk Downs race track venue.
In Indiana, meanwhile, there was a Catholic youth group organizing a Beatles burning, and other such protests were in the offing elsewhere. For the Beatles, however, then in their third year of international acclaim, the troubles of — and their forthcoming concert tour — would contribute to a major shift in their career. The release of their Revolver album in — their 7th studio album — would set something of a new standard once it was digested by fans and critics.
However, that album — released on August 5th in the U. K, and August 8th in the U. This would be their third trip to America in as many years, having arrived to wild acclaim in , the year they first broke out, and again during their American tour. Still, they came. But now, their popularity and staying power would be tested in ways they had never experienced before. By August 11th, , the Beatles had arrived in Chicago, the first stop on their American tour.
They had flown into Chicago from a connecting flight from Boston on American Airlines, and at their first class seats they found copies of the Bible, thoughtfully provided for each member of the group. August 11, John Lennon of the Beatles, center, is flanked by George Harrison, left, and Ringo Starr as he apologizes for his remark that "the Beatles are more popular than Jesus," at a Chicago news conference.
I never meant it as a lousy, antireligious thing…. If I had said television is more popular than Jesus, I might have got away with it…. I just said what I said and it was wrong, or was taken wrong. Still, the Beatles hoped for the best as they began their tour. Photo, Associated Press. By August 12th, as the Beatles began their American tour, they performed two shows at the International Amphitheater in Chicago, at pm and pm.
Each performance was at near full capacity, seen by 13, fans. Press coverage was favorable. The Beatles were in town and teenagers were in ecstasy. Not deterred by the story of protest kicked up recently by Beatle John Lennon, an estimated 30, fans bought tickets for two performances here.
For that event, ex-Beatle fans over a ten day period brought their Beatles records and other memorabilia to be burned in protest. In addition, by August 13, the music industry magazine, Billboard , was also reporting that a number of radio stations were calling for a ban on Beatles music.
Some twenty-two radio stations by that date, mostly in the South, had begun to boycott Beatles music. And at their first performances on the tour, The Beatles appeared to be doing quite well, playing to full venues, at least in Chicago, as shown in the photograph below. August 12th, The Beatles in Chicago at the International Amphitheater, first stop on their American tour, taking a bow on stage after their performance, which appears to have drawn a full house.
For the third city on their concert tour, the Beatles were scheduled for one show in Cleveland, Ohio on August 14th at pm at Cleveland Stadium, then also known Lakefront Stadium or Cleveland Municipal Stadium. AAP-Reuter wire story on Cleveland pastor who told his parishioners they would be expelled from the church if they attended Beatles concert. Thurmann H.
Babbs warned his parishioners that if they attended the Beatles concert that evening he would expel them from the congregation — and he backed up his warning by reading passages from the third book of Daniel. The previous evening, Rev. In Cleveland, meanwhile, it is not known how many members of Rev. The concert was halted for about 30 minutes until police reinforcements arrived to restore order.
Still, as reported by Beatles media manager, Tony Barrow, at the end of that show some fans tried stealing Beatles instruments from the stage as souvenirs. On Monday, August 15th, , in Washington, D.
The stadium was then used by the Washington Senators professional baseball team. Outside D. Still, the D. In advance of the Beatles arrival in Washington D. As Aarons explained in his piece, Lennon had a childhood of indifferent religious training, then went through a period of cynical atheism, and in more recent years, a reshuffling of his thinking given his various worldly exposures and travels. I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky.
I believe that what people call God is something in all of us, I believe what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. On a personal level, Lennon was genuinely concerned about the reaction to his remarks.
The Beatles Bonfires were especially unsettling. But the record burning. That was the real shock, the physical burning. But the record burn-ing. In his final years, I spent at least one day a week interviewing Hy for a biography I gave the working title Tuesdays With Hyski. By the beginning of September , Philadelphia was a city divided by joy and fear. All summer long, the Phillies had led the National League and looked to be cruising toward the team's first World Series appearance since But in late August, a routine police stop on Columbia Avenue provoked three days of lawlessness and racial violence in North Philadelphia that resulted in no deaths but left injured, arrested, and properties damaged or destroyed.
Security precautions for the Beatles' arrival were expansive and ingenious. They were coming from a concert in Atlantic City. Thousands of fans lined the route to Philadelphia along the Black Horse Pike.
Thousands more staked out key locations near Center City hotels and the Convention Hall. Hy said what happened next was Rizzo's idea. Half a dozen decoy limousines were dispatched from the Beatles' Atlantic City hotel, and the guests of honor were spirited out of town unnoticed in the back of a Hackney's Seafood Restaurant truck equipped with four cots and an easy chair.
The plan worked to perfection. The decoy limos attracted the fans, and the mackerel-crowded fish truck full of snoozing mop tops arrived unmolested. And didn't the Beatles put on a show. Couldn't hear a word of any of them because of all the girls screaming including my thenyear-old future wife, who says the noise hurt her ears.
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