BEATLES FANS RECALL 1964 CONCERT IN MILWAUKEE

 

 

Pat Stephany of Fond du Lac displays part of her Beatles collection which includes a copy of the ticket stub from a Beatles concert she attended in Milwaukee on Sept. 4, 1964. It would be the only time The Beatles would play in Milwaukee. She says to this day she is still in love with Paul McCartney. 

Pat Stephany’s most cherished piece of Beatles memorabilia is a postcard taken on the day they played their only Milwaukee concert. At age 14 she took a bus from Fond du Lac to Milwaukee to see the concert on Sept. 4, 1964. The group is posing with Milwaukee radio personality Bob Barry, second from left.

 

Stephany's aunt, Eve Saltzwadel, picked up two tickets at the grocery store where she worked and met her niece at the bus stop along Michigan Avenue in the busy downtown area of the city.

"I was 14 years old and my cousin Jody and I waited two hours in line before the show, holding the posters we made," Stephany said. "Mine had Paul on it because he was my favorite and hers had George."

The painstakingly designed posters were confiscated — the long stick-handles deemed too dangerous — by ticket takers at the door.

Bob Barry, the disc-jockey of WOKY radio in Milwaukee, dubbed by listeners as "The Fifth Beatle," walked up and down the long line visiting with fans.

Once inside the arena the din was deafening as the cousins found their seats just left of stage.

"An announcer came on while Jackie DeShannon was trying to sing and said if we did not quiet down The Beatles would not appear," Stephany said. "There were girls fainting and paramedics everywhere."

There was a good view of the stage and they could hear The Beatles singing, but the best part of the night came after the 30-minute show ended and they walked to the designated spot about a block from the arena to wait for their ride home.

"All of a sudden a black limo pulled up to the stop sign, the window rolled down and The Beatles waved to us," Stephany said. "I think we touched the limo and they stuck their hands out. Ringo was sitting on the end."

Karen Knuth Hoying of Fond du Lac was just 13 years old when her mother presented her with a pair of concert tickets to The Beatles. She was allowed to invite a friend and the two of them were driven by Hoying's parents to the arena.

Outside frenzied fans were held back from reaching the "Fab Four's" motorcade by police barricades.

Their seats were up in the top tier — the nosebleed section — and the two friends could barely see their English heartthrobs.

"I was overwhelmed with excitement and I couldn't really hear that much either, but I knew something very historical was happening," Hoying said.

The Milwaukee concert was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. with four opening acts: The Exciters, Jackie DeShannon, the Righteous Brothers and the Bill Black Combo. A few days before the concert Clarence "Frogman" Henry replaced the Righteous Brothers on the bill.

Around 9:10 p.m. The Beatles opened with "I Saw Her Standing There," according to the Milwaukee Sentinel.

"They were only on stage for maybe 30 or 40 minutes, but I didn't care because I loved them," Hoying said. "I went to see 'A Hard Day's Night' 22 times and my mother even went with me once."

Former Fond du Lac resident and longtime Beatles fan Jerry Bunker of New Berlin was working at General Mitchell airport when The Beatles arrived in Milwaukee and, as fate would have it, was standing next to a guy at the fence who had a bunch of tickets to the show.

"I bought a ticket for my girlfriend, drove her downtown and dropped her off among the throngs of screaming girls," Bunker recalls. "It was so exciting that I decided to go to the show the following night in Chicago."

The day of the Chicago show, Bunker and his girlfriend first went back to downtown Milwaukee and waited outside the Coach House Motor Inn on West Wisconsin Avenue. There they watched the Beatles leave Milwaukee with a mob of girls chasing the limousine down the street.

The Beatles performed in Illinois on Sept. 5 at the International Amphitheatre, an indoor venue adjacent to the Union Stockyards. Bunker's girlfriend waited at a nearby restaurant while he attended the show.

"I was about three-quarters of the way back on the main floor and the shrieking was incredible, it was pandemonium," Bunker said. " All the flash bulbs were like a giant strobe, brighter than daylight and right above me was the largest speaker box I ever saw and I still could not hear a thing. I endured four or five songs and left early."

Everyone in town knew 11-year-old Mary (Gusse) Sanchez was Beatles-crazy. Two walls of her bedroom were plastered with photos and she was a diehard member of the underground Beatles Club at Woodworth Junior High School. She was most smitten with Paul McCartney, whom she thought was "dreamy."

A snapshot of White Sox Park in Chicago on Aug. 20, 1965, where Mary Gusse Sanchez was sitting to watch The Beatles perform. The photo was taken by her father Mel Gusse. Tickets were $2.50, $4.50 and $5.50. The “Fab Four” sang: “Twist And Shout,” “She’s A Woman,” “I Feel Fine,” “Dizzy Miss Lizzy,” “Ticket To Ride,” “Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Baby’s In Black,” “Act Naturally,” “A Hard Day’s Night,” “Help!” and “I’m Down.” Sanchez grew up in Fond du Lac and now lives in Madison. (Photo: Submitted photo )

Although she only saw her father on weekends, Melvin Gusse did something for his daughter she will never forget.

"He took me to see The Beatles twice and went with me. I was stunned, really. He was a quiet man and I didn't know him like other kids knew their dad, so that was why it was so amazing," she said.

The first concert took place Aug. 20, 1965, at Comiskey Park in Chicago where the White Sox played. Sanchez was in the second row nursing a knee wound that had required stitches. She was supposed to keep her knee straight but that didn't happen. How could it?

The front page of the Milwaukee Journal on Sept. 5, 1964, after The Beatles played in Milwaukee. (Photo: Doug Raflik/Action Reporter Media )

"At one point the girls in front of me and behind me started to surge forward and we all started to run out onto the baseball field. The police formed a human chain and told us to sit down. My dad was mad I did that and my knee got all messed up," Sanchez said.

The following year Sanchez and her father attended an Aug. 12 performance at the International Amphitheatre — the same venue where Jerry Bunker saw The Beatles in 1964. The audience sat on metal folding chairs set up on the ground floor, so it was difficult to see the stage.

"I was standing on my chair — everyone was — and my dad kept pulling at my skirt to sit down," Sanchez said. "I remember him preparing for the concert by pulling out a bottle of aspirin, taking two without any water, and then putting cotton balls in his ears."

The performance was the last time the Beatles played in Chicago and the last time Mary Gusse Sanchez saw them in concert. She took home souvenirs — an orange megaphone, a toy guitar and a button that says "I still love Paul," to match the "I love Paul" button that was already in her collection.

"I think the best part of those concerts was being with my dad and learning he was a cool, generous man," she said.