by Kathy O’Connell, XPN, Host of Kid’s Corner

Mostly, I remember screaming.

I won tickets to the Beatles concert at Shea Stadium in 1965 from Flip Magazine, in a contest to finish the sentence “I want to see the Beatles because…” My answer was something like “just look at them –John, Paul, George and Ringo.” I think there wasn’t much competition in that contest. Since I won two tickets, I invited my best friend Nancy, and my brother inherited the ticket I had already purchased. My mother’s car was full of 13-year-old girls singing Beatles songs along with WABC on the car radio and waving to other cars whose occupants were joyously doing the same as we trekked from the far reaches of Long Island to Flushing’s home of the Mets. My brother just kept shouting “let’s go Mets” at the other cars. The stadium was packed with emotional (mostly) girls bonded by our common love and raging hormones for the Fab Four. A dj, dancing girls, and an opening act came and went on the stage before IT happened. IT WAS THE BEATLES!!! A zillion flashbulbs popped, an enormous high-pitched scream erupted, and The Beatles took the stage. I remember flashing lights, lots of noise, and four teeny figures cavorting on a stage in the middle of the baseball diamond. They were dressed in identical suits, and I suppose they were singing. I can’t tell you for sure, since I screamed from the beginning of the concert to the end, along with every other girl in that stadium. I screamed for George Harrison to pick me out of the crowd. I screamed when John Lennon kicked his leg. I screamed when Ringo shook his hair. I screamed for Paul McCartney on general principles because he was just so cute. No, I couldn’t hear them. No, I have no idea what songs they sang — although I have a vague recollection of “Twist and Shout,” “Yesterday” (lower-level screaming for the ballad), and “Help.” I had records at home to listen to their music. I was there to scream at them. And with all the joy of youth and innocence and erupting teenage frenzy, my screams blended with thousands of other girls’ voices whose only dream had just come true.

They were here. They weren’t on a movie screen (where Nancy and I had screamed through A Hard Day’s Night the previous summer). They weren’t photos in 16 Magazine. They weren’t characters in The Beatles stories Nancy and I made up, where Paul emerged from a coma to greet us with “hello, luv.” John, Paul, George, and Ringo were actually on a stage in New York, on my home turf. It was something to scream about.

So, I actually looked for sites to see if my memories jibe with what actually happened when the Beatles played Shea Stadium in 1965. Turns out the “dj, dancing girls, and an opening act” were actually the Murray the K, the King Curtis Band, Cannibal and the Headhunters, Brenda Holloway, The Young Rascals and Ed Sullivan introducing them. This may say more about the hypnotic power The Beatles had over me than anything else. I only had eyes (and ears) for them. There are sites devoted to the Beatles’ concert at Shea Stadium, which has more historical significance than I realized — it was the first time a stadium had been used for a rock concert. I don’t remember any part of the whole thing as clearly as I remember the 4 of them performing on that stage, so far away. And the screaming, of course… I finally watched the video of The Beatles’ concert at Shea Stadium on YouTube, and I can’t stop smiling when I watch the Beatles sing. I asked Nancy for her memory of that concert. We sat next to each other.

I remember feeling excited and fun and totally in love with the four musicians on the stage. It was still at a time when The Beatles weren’t taken seriously by adults, so being among thousands of other young people who “got it” about the Beatles felt safe and familiar in the midst of chaos. Nancy’s memory is a little different from mine.

And here’s Nancy from Helena, MT’s memory of The Beatles at Shea Stadium:

OK — here’s my memory from the alleged Beatles’ concert at Shea Stadium. As you know, I was delicately reared, so the screaming was wild, but even wilder, I remember the box we were in was shaking from all the stomping and hysteria. Realizing that the atmosphere was totally out of control scared me silly. The whole experience has a surreal aura about it. But hey — it was free, I was with my best friend (Kathy O’Connell), and I did live to tell. Mark Simone played cuts from the concert on his oldies show some time ago, and I emailed him to say that was the first time I had heard any of the music from that night.

This is 10 minutes that captures it beautifully: