Very nice recollection! Since I happened to be alive and a Beatles fan from the moment they first hit the U.S. on radio, I can tell you---Beatlemania was no walk in the (ball)park for them after the first couple of months. Their concerts as early as their August-September 1964 U.S. tour became exercises mostly in getting them on and off stage, in and out of the venues, alive. And, because sound systems during The Mania years weren't so well-developed, the Beatles themselves were lucky to be able to play and sing at all through the racket.
Give a close listen again---as in, as close as your mind can grasp---to their December 1964 album release, known as Beatles for Sale in England and Beatles '65 in the U.S. Even on the slightly truncated latter version, the Beatles mostly sound exhausted and even beaten down. As if they were saying, hey, The Mania was a kick for a bit but it's gotten a right pain now.
There may still be no more self-revealing moment in the history of rock and roll than George Harrison finish both versions of that album by playing and singing the Carl Perkins teen-brag classic "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" . . . and sounding as though the very idea of everybody trying to be his baby scared him to death.
That was before the Beatles and their people hit on the idea of playing almost entirely in the ballparks to accommodate the throngs who wanted to see them. On that August-September 1964 tour, they were talked out of one of their only days off by then-Kansas City Athletics owner Charlie Finley---who offered them $150,000 to play a concert in their ballpark. At the time, that was the highest fee paid a single act in the history of show business.
When they played New York's Shea Stadium for the first time, in August 1965, John Lennon himself was quoted as saying after that concert, "We've been to the mountaintop. Now where can we go?" History has long since provided the answer: the very act of giving up concert tours and The Mania, essentially giving the public up before the public gave up on them, probably began what their music would finish---assuring their immortality.
Very nice recollection! Since I happened to be alive and a Beatles fan from the moment they first hit the U.S. on radio, I can tell you---Beatlemania was no walk in the (ball)park for them after the first couple of months. Their concerts as early as their August-September 1964 U.S. tour became exercises mostly in getting them on and off stage, in and out of the venues, alive. And, because sound systems during The Mania years weren't so well-developed, the Beatles themselves were lucky to be able to play and sing at all through the racket.
Give a close listen again---as in, as close as your mind can grasp---to their December 1964 album release, known as Beatles for Sale in England and Beatles '65 in the U.S. Even on the slightly truncated latter version, the Beatles mostly sound exhausted and even beaten down. As if they were saying, hey, The Mania was a kick for a bit but it's gotten a right pain now.
There may still be no more self-revealing moment in the history of rock and roll than George Harrison finish both versions of that album by playing and singing the Carl Perkins teen-brag classic "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" . . . and sounding as though the very idea of everybody trying to be his baby scared him to death.
That was before the Beatles and their people hit on the idea of playing almost entirely in the ballparks to accommodate the throngs who wanted to see them. On that August-September 1964 tour, they were talked out of one of their only days off by then-Kansas City Athletics owner Charlie Finley---who offered them $150,000 to play a concert in their ballpark. At the time, that was the highest fee paid a single act in the history of show business.
When they played New York's Shea Stadium for the first time, in August 1965, John Lennon himself was quoted as saying after that concert, "We've been to the mountaintop. Now where can we go?" History has long since provided the answer: the very act of giving up concert tours and The Mania, essentially giving the public up before the public gave up on them, probably began what their music would finish---assuring their immortality.