When Beatlemania Stormed the Coliseum

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2014 When Beatlemania stormed the Coliseum

he first time the British invaded Washington, in the War of 1812, they torched the White House. When they returned, on TFebruary 11, 1964, they stormed the Coliseum. Two days after their historic US television debut, Liverpudlian rockers the Beatles took a train through a snowstorm from New York to Washington for their first concert in North America. For the 8,000 fans who were there, on a frigid Tuesday night, in an unheated ice and boxing are- na with little resemblance to its Roman namesake, it was the event of a lifetime. “It was phenomenal,” said Patricia Mink, then a 20-year- old native of small-town Pennsylvania working at a Washington life insurance company, who attended the show with three friends. “I remember sitting there, thinking, ‘I don’t believe I’m doing this’,” Mink told AFP. “I hardly remember hearing the music... It was absolute chaos.” This February 11, also a Tuesday, some 3,000 people will return to the Coliseum for a 50th anniversary tribute concert before the venue, most recently a parking garage, is converted into shops and offices. BeatleMania Now, which bills itself as “the world’s best Beatles tribute band,” will go through the original 12-song set list, from “Roll Over Beethoven” to “Long Tall Sally” via “I Saw Her Standing There” and “She Loves You,” with some later Beatles mate- rial tacked on for good measure. Mike Mitchell, who photographed the Beatles concert in DC when he A close-up of a copy of the set list from the Beatles’ was 18, poses for a portrait at the Washington Coliseum January 15, first concert in the United States, performed at the old It was absolute chaos 2014 in Washington, DC. — AFP photos Washington Coliseum on February 11, 1964 is viewed “We expect a pretty packed house,” said Rebecca Miller, execu- from the scrapbook of Beatles fan, Naomi Banks on tive director of the DC Preservation League, which campaigned suc- January 23, 2014 in Washington, DC. cessfully to get the Coliseum listed as a historical site. Sixties rock ‘n’ roll veteran Tommy Roe, who knew the Beatles when they toured acts for two concerts they’d go on to play at New York’s prestigious attendant to hand-carry a Beatles single from London, then invited Britain together in 1963, will open the show-just as he did a half-cen- Carnegie Hall on February 12, 1964. In any event, Washington-still Albert into his studio to introduce it on-air: “Ladies and gentlemen, tury earlier. traumatized, like the rest of the nation, by the assassination of presi- for the first time in America, here are the Beatles singing ‘I Want to “I did two songs, ‘Sheila’ and ‘Everybody,’ my two hits,” recalled dent John F. Kennedy in November 1963 — had already done its bit Hold Your Hand’.” Roe in a telephone interview. “Then the Beatles hit the stage and all to whip up Beatlemania on America’s shores. Intrigued by a CBS It instantly went what would now be known as “viral.” DJs in oth- heck broke loose. The fans were pelting us with jellybeans. It was News report that dissed the Beatles’ “non-music” and “non-hair- er cities quickly picked up on it. Caught off guard, Capitol scrambled quite exciting.” Seventy-three million Americans-a record at the cuts,” a high school student from the Maryland suburbs named to put out the record earlier than planned. By February 1 “I Want to time-tuned into “The Ed Sullivan Show” on February 9, 1964 for the Marsha Albert wrote into Washington radio station WWDC in Hold Your Hand” was number one on the Billboard chart. Up until Beatles’ first live US television appearance, when they played five December, asking it to spin some of their records. that point, “American popular music, rock ‘n’ roll, had become pretty songs to a studio audience in New York full of screaming youths. conservative,” said John Covach, who teaches rock music history at Given that Sullivan paid the Beatles a paltry $10,000 for three ‘I want to hold your hand’ the University of Rochester in New York.—AFP appearances, it’s widely assumed their manager Brian Epstein But although the Beatles had racked up five hits in Britain by booked the Washington gig to help recoup some of his losses. But then, Capitol Records, the US arm of their British label EMI, was high- the late New York impresario Sid Bernstein has revealed Epstein had ly reluctant to release any singles, as it doubted the Fab Four would asked him to book a “break-in date” to enable the group to polish its suit American tastes. So WWDC disc jockey Carroll James got a flight

A Christie’s employee looks at a work entitled ‘Mickey’ by A Christie’s employee looks at a piece entitled ‘Cracked egg (Magenta)’ by US artist Jeff Koon. Britishartist Damien Hirst at Christie’s in central London yes- terday. — AFP photos