New Orleans will celebrate the 50th 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."
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