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Rating: The two-headed mosquito flies over the arena at night. From that height, you can already distinguish many frantic fireflies that, flickering toward the void, await with anticipation the descent of the iron insect. No meteorologist could have predicted such a scorching mid-August night. It's 1965 and four English lads are about to indelibly bite into the prestigious pulp of the Big Apple.
The "Shea Stadium" in New York was the temple of baseball, and on that occasion, shiny wood and stitched leather, dirty from the dust kicked up with every slide, gave way to taut nylon and vocal cords. The latter, for obvious reasons of force majeure, will be significantly more exploited.
The photo of an adonis crowned with laurel, who perhaps is not an adonis but certainly the laurel fits well, appears on display in a case. Smoking with slow distraction, wearing unusual hoods and tender sweaters. The tension dissipates by tuning the instruments, joking, laughing. Outside, the fireflies give little space to the support groups, Kingpins, Cannibal and the Headhunters, Sound Incorporated, and Brenda Holloway. Photos are taken toward an "empty" stage. The great madness leads to this as well. Boots, black pants, a beige Korean jacket, and a shine to the "Wells Fargo Agent" badge. Many will think it's the MBE, but it is not. One last shy glance at the dressing room, and that's the last they are seen.
Ed Sullivan takes the stage, the top television host, producer, and organizer. His appearance in the arena is the prelude to the ultrasound. By now, everyone understands they are almost in. Already, several faintings and a few mild collapses have been attended to with gentle slaps to the face. Tears are already flowing in streams, and some vocal cords have already broken. After a few introductory words, Sullivan hardly finishes saying "The Beatles" when an unbelievable vocal earthquake erupts. Memorable is the policeman who plugs his ears to avoid seriously compromising them. John, George, and Paul run across the playing field with their guitars in tow. Ringo, with only his drumsticks, can go faster. They are escorted by police, leading them away. The peaks of the ultrasound are reached when they dare to lift a hand toward the sky in greeting the audience. Once on the stage, they attempt, with little success, to address the thousands of people fidgeting in the stands. Everything is covered by a noise of inexplicable screams and cries.
They start with "Twist and Shout," moving on to "I Feel Fine," "Ticket to Ride," and "Baby's in Black." Needless to say, while John sang ...oh dear what can I do, baby's in black and I'm feeling blue, tell me, oh what can I do...dozens of thousands of girls would have, materially or not, reached orgasm. All Beatles concerts were like this. All disturbed by the wild screams of girls engulfed by the inexplicable hysteria of Beatlemania. They could have messed up chords, gone off-key, sang one verse instead of another, or, as Ringo put it more demotically, farted on stage, and they would have screamed all the same. John, joking, will try to exchange a few words with the fans between songs. And more crying, fainting, collapses. Dozens of girls will be carried out by the weight or on the shoulders by police from that chaos. An easily breachable net will be eluded on several occasions. More work for security, which with not a few difficulties will be forced to drag away the assailants.
At the "Shea Stadium" that evening, for a concert of just half an hour divided into twelve songs, there were 55,602 paying attendees, for a take of 306,000 dollars. They could have reached 65, 70,000 if they had also made the field available. But at least a dozen divisions of the Special Forces would have been needed to keep that strange phenomenon in check. Memorable scenes are the sleepy bulky one who, like an intruder, sighs on a railing, the bespectacled coelacanth who waves his arms while an African American policeman pants from fatigue, wiping sweat, and the girls climbing the fence. A great concert, overall. If it weren't for those screams...
A curious syllogism. King Curtis, with his Kingpins, played as a support group at the Beatles concert. A certain Jimmy James played as a support guitarist in King Curtis's band. Paul McCartney, together with John Phillips and Lou Adler, organized the famous Monterey Pop Festival, and interceded persistently for the Who and a then-little-known Jimmy James... um, sorry, a certain Jimi Hendrix.
The film of the event, produced by Ed Sullivan's NEMS and Subafilm, which has undergone various editing and reassembling over time, can be found on the net or as a bootleg. The "Shea Stadium" was demolished in 2009, and the mosquito that transported the Beatles to the stadium was a CH-46 Sea Knight.
In my life I love you more...
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