The fascinating images, from February 1964, show what happened after
The Fab Four landed at JFK airport in New York – where they were met by
3,000 screaming fans.
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Once in NYC, the band performed on the Ed Sullivan show in front of a TV audience of 73million people.
Their visit, which took place 53 years ago this month, marked the start of Beatlemania.
The groundwork for their first US trip had begun months earlier, in
October 1963, when presenter Ed Sullivan had been passing through
Heathrow Airport as the Beatles were due to land from a Swedish visit
and he spotted a huge gathering of fans waiting for them.
At that time, the Liverpool legends had already achieved three UK
number ones with Please Please Me, From Me To You and She Loves You.
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Ed recalled: “There was the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen in my life.
“I asked someone what was going on and he said, ‘The Beatles’. ‘Who the hell are The Beatles?’ I asked.
“But I went back to my hotel, got the name of their manager and arranged for them to do three shows.”
The group’s manager Brian Epstein sealed the deal with Sullivan,
accepting $10,000 (around £62,000 in today’s money) for the
performances.
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Ed later admitted that he had been nervous because the band was still relatively unknown in his country.
Luckily, just days before the band arrived in the US, American
audiences had caught up and The Beatles had scored their first number
one with I Want To Hold Your Hand – almost 11 months after they first
topped the charts in the UK.
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Ed’s show then received 50,000 applications for tickets in a 728-seat theatre.
When the band touched down at JFK, they never imagined the welcome
that they would receive – as thousands of fans eagerly awaited them.
Paul told Anthology: “There were millions of kids at the
airport, which nobody had expected. We heard about it in mid-air.
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“There were journalists on the plane, and the pilot had rang ahead
and said, ‘Tell the boys there’s a big crowd waiting for them.’ We
thought, ‘Wow! God, we have really made it.’”
Ringo added: “It was so exciting. On the plane, flying in to the
airport, I felt as though there was a big octopus with tentacles that
were grabbing the plane and dragging us down into New York.
“America was the best. It was a dream, coming from Liverpool.”
On February 11 1964, two days after their appearance on The Ed
Sullivan Show, the band performed their US concert debut in Washington.
The concert was held at the Washington Coliseum and the seating plan in the arena was in its arrangement for boxing.
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The Beatles had to set up on the un-roped ring in the middle – which
meant that the group were only facing 25 percent of the 8,092 fans in
the audience at any given time.
To combat this, the band moved their amps, microphones and Ringo Starr‘s drum riser one-quarter turn clockwise between songs.
The band played a 35-minute set of 12 songs, including: Roll Over,
Beethoven, From Me to You, I Saw Her Standing There, This Boy, All My
Loving, I Wanna Be Your Man, Please Please Me, Till There Was You, She
Loves You, I Want to Hold Your Hand, Twist and Shout and Long Tall
Sally.
When the band made their way back to London at the end of February
1964, masses of fans awaited them – with many holding banners with
slogans such as “welcome home boys”.
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