NEW ORLEANS WILL CELEBRATE THE 50th ANNIVERSARY OF THE BEATLES' 1964 CONCERT AT CITY PARK STADIUM

New Orleans will celebrate the 50^th anniversary of The Beatles' 1964 concert at City Park Stadium with a WYES re-creation of the event starring The Fab Four. Let's hope the tribute band doesn't stimulate audience reaction similar to what happened during the original concert.

 "It was an incredible night, but it was also kind of a scary night," said Ivor Davis, who covered The Beatles' entire 1964 North American tour for London's Daily Express. "What happened was, they'd heard about the (crowd-control) horrors of other stadiums, so they set up a kind of no-go zone. That was a mistake. The moment the Beatles started in on the first couple of songs, the kids jumped up and decided, 'To hell with the no-go zone,' and they moved close to the stage. Where, unfortunately, some of the local gendarmes on horseback decided to stop them.

"To be honest with you, it was quite a scary time, because a lot of the kids were bleeding. I think it was, from my point of view, one of the scariest nights of the whole tour."

All of it unfolded as The Beatles watched from the stage, never missing a note. Or missing any of the on-field action. "I want to thank everyone for coming, including the football players," said Paul McCartney, near the end of the show.

A London-born reporter who's lived in Southern California since the early 1960s, Davis recalls his Beatles-tour assignment, which included ghostwriting a daily column for George Harrison, in his engaging new book, "The Beatles and Me On Tour."

A lot of the book's scenes, and especially their matter-of-fact reporting, are astounding to anyone interested in American popular culture. In addition to witnessing the frenzy of the 1964 tour, Davis was in the room when The Beatles first met Elvis Presley (actually during the band's 1965 tour), and also when The Beatles first met marijuana, as introduced to them by Bob Dylan. ("I vividly remember that, because Bob Dylan looked so rascally," Davis said.

Davis' off-hand recounting of these moment and others in the book – including lots of time just hanging out with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr at the height of Beatlemania – are understandable, maybe, given other stateside assignments Davis worked for London publications during his career. Those stories ranged from covering James Meredith's integration of the University of Mississippi to political campaigns to the trials of Sirhan Sirhan, Angela Davis, Charles Manson and Patty Hearst.

"You move on," Davis said. "You do an interview, you do a story to get it in the paper, and then the next day you go on to the next story and you forget yesterday."

Davis' memories of The Beatles' brief 1964 visit to New Orleans include the band's manic arrival at Moisant Field, and transportation by limo to the Congress Inn on Chef Menteur Highway. (The Beatles had originally been booked at the Roosevelt Hotel, which backed out when spooked by reports from earlier tour cities.) Davis also reported on a news conference the next afternoon at which New Orleans Mayor Victor Schiro presented a proclamation to the band, a copy of which he had them autograph. ("Your pen, your lordship," said Lennon, returning the mayor's writing implement.)

Davis also was present when Fat Domino visited the band backstage before their performance.

"Paul was really into Fats," Davis said. "Paul was the one that revered him, and Paul was the one that made it happen.

"The Beatles didn't do the old showbiz thing and have dozens of people in their dressing room after concerts. The reason they didn't have dressing room soirées after the concert was, as soon as they finished with 'Long Tall Sally,' they'd drop their guitars and they were in the limo or the ambulance or the meat truck and they were out, and we were out, before anybody got up.

"Audiences may have thought they were going to come back for encores, but they never did. It was too hazardous to their health."

The Fats Domino summit, Davis said, was part of The Beatles' larger appreciation for New Orleans music, which they'd hoped to sample while in town. A lucrative last-minute booking in Kansas City the night after their concert here spoiled those plans, Davis said.

"The Beatles, from the very beginning of the tour, would talk to me about wanting to do the jazz clubs and hear some of the music of New Orleans," Davis said. "George said that to me time and again, that he wanted to do that.

"But unfortunately, because of the madness, they never got to go to a nightclub or listen to any local jazz. That was a shame."