August ’64- The Beatles First US Tour

This month will mark 60 years since the Beatles invaded the US shores to perform their very first American concert tour. Although they had famously visited America earlier in the year (February, when they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show and held a concert in Washington DC), their 6-week tour (August 19 through September 20, 1964) would mark a 32 concert/24-city juggernaut unlike anything show biz had seen.

The band’s popularity was at a peak; they were able to command a $50,000 (equivalent to an estimated $500,000 today) fee for a 30-minute show. Their A Hard Day’s Night film had been in over 500 theaters across the country since early July. The movie provided the Americans, who initially loved them for their music, with some “definition” as to who they each were (even though the roles each of them played in the film were, in part, fictional behaviors).

This made the intensity of the mania even more turbo-charged.  As one of their road managers, Neil Aspinall, put it, “America was now very aware of the Beatles, and things were crazy.” Almost daily, the world received reports of fans dropping to their knees when the band’s limo would pass them, crowds dangling over freeway passes to catch a glimpse, and shrieking mobs of young girls defying police orders.

In San Fransico, fans staying at a hotel just a few floors above the Beatle’s rooms tied bedsheets together in a dangerous attempt to lower themselves to the windows of the Beatles’ suite.

As the tour gathered steam, Kansas City showed that the mayhem was broadening: a middle-aged “mother” got stuck crawling through the air-conditioning ducts of the Muhlbach Hotel. “Older women would come up to us all the time and say, “I want to meet the Beatles,” recalled a journalist who was traveling with the band’s team. “I’d say, ‘I can’t do that.’ And they’d say, ‘No, you don’t understand. I want to make them happy.”

While noting the tour’s significance, The Beatles all came away from that experience with four different views. Here are some of their most memorable reflections from that 1964 US tour.

John Lennon

John largely resented those outsiders who made the tour more outrageous than it needed to be.  “Anywhere we go we’re going to get people coming up with their flashers (camera flashbulbs).  You take it once, twice, maybe three times, and then you say, ‘OK, wherever-your-name-is, have you done yet?”  He reflected at the time, “It’s embarrassing for us because they say ‘Oh, they’re big-headed, how dare they ask somebody to go away.”  Over time, John displayed a consistent disdain for those in high authority in the Beatle’s orbit. “They were always threatening what they would tell the press, to make bad publicity about us if we didn’t see their bloody daughter with braces on her teeth.  And it’s always the police chief’s daughter or the Lord Mayor’s daughter, all the obnoxious people thrust on us and were forced to see them all the time.”

But that didn’t stop John from being John. Upon their triumphant two shows at the Hollywood Bowl, (it wouldn’t be until 1977 that George Martin would resurrect and produce the live recordings of these performances) the Beatles were heavily courted by actors and movie executives. One determined admirer was the busty Jayne Mansfield, who “harangued and hassled” press agent Derek Taylor to spend time, in public, with the group. When a compromise was struck, and it was agreed that they all go together to the Whiskey-A-Go-Go, the entourage climbed into a limo to travel together to the club. Miami’s WFUN Radio host Larry Kane, who was part of the limo group, recalled, “Before anyone knew what was happening, John grabbed Mansfield and they started making out like mad. It was almost obscene the way they went at it like that, right there in front of us.”

George Harrison

George initially approached both the tour and the press from an “innocent” perspective. As he described: “We had no reason to be guarded or defensive with the press, because we were having fun and it wasn’t any big deal. We were straightforward, down-to-earth, and pretty honest.” He recalled, “I remember talking to the press all the way round the American tours. But, generally, in the early days, there was that concept that pop stars shouldn’t rattle their audience [as dictated by manager Brian Epstein].  You can’t be married, don’t let  them see your girlfriend- and don’t mention the [Vietnam] war!”

This position grated on George over the tour, so much that by their return to the USA in 1965, he made it clear that he wouldn’t be silenced as he was prepared to talk about ALL subjects. “There was always all kinds of trouble in the States. There was everyone trying to sue us. There were girls trying to get into our rooms so they could sue us for totally made-up things. I’d never heard of suing people until we went to America.”

The lead guitarist, who was known by his closest colleagues to have the ability to go from placid to hot-anger in a matter of seconds, made headlines during the Whiskey-A-Go-Go outing by throwing a drink at a photographer who wouldn’t leave their table alone.  Larry Kane recalled, “After a suitable grace period, George wanted Hollywood photographer Robert Flora ‘to get lost!!’, he roared, to a stunned entourage.

Jumping halfway to his feet, he snatched up his glass and hurled its contents at the camera.” Inevitably, the picture of the drink-throwing moment was splashed across the world the next day. So much for the “quiet” Beatle!  He told the Anthology project in the 1990s, “With the concerts and the Beatlemania, after a while the novelty wore off and then it was very boring.”

Ringo Starr

The happy-go-lucky drummer was able to find the sunny side of the mayhem. “I found the tour madness exciting. I loved it. I loved the decoy cars and all the intricate ways of getting us to gigs. It was just so much fun! Also, we were meeting a lot of great people, musicians and actors, and finding great bars.”

Ringo’s fondest memory of the tour was the evening the band was invited to actor Burt Lancaster’s Bel-Air estate. Ringo being a crazed cowboy fan couldn’t believe his luck, and described Lancaster as a “bronzed god, about eight feet tall.” Childlike, Ringo arrived that evening in Western wear, complete with holster and toy guns. “What have you got there?” the dominating actor quizzed him. Now a little embarrassed, it was reported that Starr dropped his chin and said, “Just kids’ stuff.”

Back on stage, Ringo described the ongoing tale of his inability to hear themselves during the performance. “With all the screaming. I couldn’t do great drum kicks or rolls or fills, I had to just hang onto the backbeat all the time to keep everybody together. I sat in the back and watched the others’ bums to read where the hell we were with the beat of songs.”

Paul McCartney

Besides nearly being handcuffed by an inventive female fan in Chicago, Paul’s initial take-away from the tour seemed to focus on the band’s disappointing musical performances, due to the hysterics.  “People were saying, ‘Doesn’t it drive you mad, all these girls screaming? We didn’t mind it, because sometimes it covered a multitude of sins: we were out of tune! It didn’t matter – we couldn’t hear it, nor could they.”

But for the man who would write “Got To Get You Into My Life” as his disguised ode to marijuana, the band’s first meeting with Bob Dylan after their Forest Hills NY show will always be one of his stand-out moments. Although George and John had already been exposed to pot in Liverpool, it was not as dynamic or powerful compared to what Dylan had brought with him.

Paul remembers the folk singer describing his current state as  ‘The ceiling’s coming down on me’ …. “And we went, WOW! I leaped up, “God, got to do this!” Paul jumped right in. Soon the band was “legless, aching from laughter!”

Paul would later say that this was a mind-blowing moment for him, so much, that he ordered his Road Manager pal, Mal Evans, to write down any profundities that were coming out of his mouth. He shouted, “Get it down, Mal, get it down!”  The next morning, Paul reviewed Evan’s notes and read their contents out loud to the other Beatles. The only half-interesting statement seemed to be: “There are seven levels.”…and that was it!… leaving the others laughing to no end.

The Beatles ended their tour, leaving America on September 21 and having grossed $1.2 million – an outrageous amount of money in 1964 for a rock & roll band.

-Steve Valavano

Photo: Beatles, 1964 (Getty Images)