John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, four fresh-faced youngsters from London, England, rocketed onto the United States music scene as The Beatles on February 7, 1964. In a short period of two and a half years, they created a world-wide sensation known as "Beatlemania" and became one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed bands in the history of popular music.
With their music accepted around the world, their popularity was unrivaled, and the money they earned was spectacular. The Beatles were the idol of almost every teenaged girl and the envy of almost every teenaged boy, but there was a down side to their fame. Everything in life carries a price. Sometimes the price is clear and well-known, sometimes it's not so obvious.
In a day when American men wore crew cuts or short combed hair styles, their mop-top hair styles to say the least caused some curiosity, and in fact made them the scourge of some American parents. By today's standards, the fab four were actually a very clean-cut group in their mop top hair and Edwardian suits.
Many teenaged girls and women cried, shrieked, screamed, and even fainted upon the mere sight of The Beatles. In concert, the screams were so deafening that none of The Beatles (or anyone else) could hear anything. When they began, The Beatles used 30 watt Vox amplifiers in their concerts, but the screaming and shrieking became so loud over time that Vox designed the 120 watt RMS Super Beatle solid state amplifier for them. The Super Beatle's sound was extremely loud and clean, but even it was still not loud enough to be heard over the crowd's screams. Consequently, The Beatles had to connect to the house amplifier system to be heard at all. Unable to hear each other or even themselves in concert, The Beatles often nervously played through a list of songs without a hint of what kind of sound they produced. Mesmorized fans screamed hysterically regardless of how they played.
The spectators didn't care - they came more to see The Beatles than hear them. The crowds were not only loud, they were unpredictable. Spectators continually tried to rush the stage to touch The Beatles, and over the next two years they became virtual prisoners in their hotel rooms while they were on tour. Even if they mean well, 20,000 screaming and out of control fans can unintentionally hurt their heroes and themselves.
The novelty had worn off and the experience overwhelmed The Beatles. The crowd's hysteria and unpredictabilty scared them, and their grand entrances into major stadiums by helicopter and armored car were necessary out of concern for personal safety, not showmanship.
By mid-1966 John, Paul, George and Ringo had grown tired of their image as teen idol "moptops" and tired of being on the road. After playing Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, The Beatles had just one more concert to perform before returning to their homes in England.
On August 29, 1966, The Beatles concluded their 14-city U.S. tour with a concert at San Francisco's Candlestick Park. Tempo Productions, owned by popular San Francisco radio station KYA disc jockeys Tom "Big Daddy" Donohue and Bobby Mitchell, promoted the concert. Candlestick was where The Beatles started their first American tour and in the two years since, San Francisco's psychedelic movement, like The Beatles, had erupted worldwide.
The Beatles arrived in San Francisco by chartered jet that full-moon and windy August night. The jet taxied to a remote area of San Francisco International Airport, where The Beatles disembarked to a waiting bus, followed by an armored truck - just in case it was needed. Carloads of girls tailed the bus and armored truck up the Bayshore freeway all the way to Candlestick.
Security was heavy as The Beatles arrived, and not everyone there was thrilled with their appearance. Something over a dozen protesters marched outside the park carrying signs protesting The Beatles and John Lennon's remark to an interviewer several months earlier that Christianity was declining and that The Beatles were now more popular than Jesus Christ. Just a small handful of kids were protesting, but it was enough to make newspapers and the TV news.
The bus drove directly under the stadium, and it's doubtful that The Beatles even saw the small band of noisy protestors. Once inside, The Beatles were taken to the San Francisco Giants' locker room. There they visited with press and friends and ate fried chicken before the show, far from screaming fans.
Earlier that day, a stage surrounded by two storm fences had been erected on the infield, and a massive sound system had been installed in the stadium.
The Cyrkle, The Ronnettes, Barry Tashian and The Remains and Bobby Hebb performed as opening acts.
The big moment finally arrived and The Beatles burst out of the Giant's dug-out accompanied by a throng of body guards. The armored truck was driven to second base, where it sat with the motor running throughout the concert in case it was needed for a quick get-away.
Flashbulbs turned the stands into a sparkling sea of light. Candlestick Park could seat 42,500, but this concert filled just 25,000 seats and entire sections were unsold. However, those present had paid between $3.80 and $7.00 ($25.00 to $160.00 in 2007 dollars) for a ticket.
The fans' screams were deafening. As had become usual, The Beatles couldn't hear themselves or each other. At one point, John Lennon began playing the keyboard with his elbows while the whole group laughed hysterically.
The show was extremely short, lasting just 33 minutes. The Beatles performed Rock and Roll Music, She's A Woman, If I Needed Someone, Day Tripper, Baby's In Black, I Feel Fine, Yesterday, I Wanna Be Your Man, Nowhere Man, Paperback Writer, closing with Little Richard's Long Tall Sally, the same set as they had played at most of the previous venues on that tour.
After Long Tall Sally, they took one last bow, climbed into the waiting Loomis armored truck, and were escorted by out of the stadium by 11 motorcycle policemen by 10 p.m. For their efforts, it is said The Beatles were paid 65% of the gross receipts, or roughly $90,000 ($570,000 in 2007 dollars). The City of San Francisco was said to have received 15% of paid admissions and 50 free tickets, and Tempo Productions is said to have lost money due to mediocre ticket sales and a number of unexpected expenses encountered in staging the concert.
Loomis 144 took its world-famous cargo back to the San Francisco airport, and the Candlestick concert was destined to go down in history. On the plane leaving San Francisco that night, George Harrison told reporters facetiously: "Well, that's it. I'm not a Beatle any more." At the time, no one realized that they had just seen the Beatles' last live concert. After the Candlestick concert, The Beatles stopped touring. Their music had changed, and in two and a half years The Beatles had changed, too. They could no longer replicate their studio sound in live performances, and they had become afraid for their own safety.
I'm sure that by now you're wondering what The Beatles and a throng of screaming California teen-agers in 1966 has to do with Titus County history. The world is smaller than you think.
Things have a way of changing over time. Candlestick park was renamed 3-Com Stadium in 1995. The San Francisco Giants who had been there since 1960 left in 1999. Candlestick Park is now known as Monster Park. As they had feared years before, fame eventually cost John Lennon his life when deranged fan Mark David Chapman shot Lennon to death outside the entrance to his apartment in the Dakota in New York City on December 8, 1980. Paul McCartney became Sir Paul McCartney on March 11, 1997 when he was knighted for his services to music. In 2008, Sir Paul's When I'm Sixty-four has a new and very personal meaning to the screaming and shrieking teenagers who witnessed the Beatles' last concert.
After its ten minutes of fame, Loomis armored truck #144 returned to its workaday duty of hauling currency and checks around California. When the truck chassis under the armored body became worn out, the body was moved to another chassis. Over time, the hydraulic lift gate that was mounted on the rear of the body in 1966 was removed. The body continued in use until it, too, finally became obsolete. By then it was mounted on an International chassis and had been renumbered as #453. Loomis Armored Service decided to discard the truck that the armored body was mounted on, and it was sold to Allen Scrap Metal in Mt. Pleasant to be salvaged.
However, by a twist of fate it wasn't. About a year after the truck arrived here, some Loomis employees called from California to see if it was still here and disclosed the armored truck's interesting past. By a stroke of luck the body had not been cut up yet.
The armored truck body that once whisked the Beatles away from their final live concert now rests on the ground at Allen's Scrap Metal. Like some of the then teenagers who screamed as it sped by carring the Beatles, the old armored body is showing its age.
Unfortunately, there are no autographs or other memoribilia inside the rusting body to document its day in the sun, but Loomis kept good records on their vehicles, and they showed that the body is from the armored truck at Candlestick Park. Loomis even sent Jerry and Martha Parr a copy of an article from their company's magazine describing Loomis 144's participation in that momentous night and showing the truck as it left the stadium.
While this isn't one of the biggest or most important stories of Titus County history, we thought it was interesting and thought our readers would want to know about Titus County's link, however small, to an event that changed the music world.
Perhaps some 42 years later the fence that surrounds the old armored truck will be enough to keep back a throng of screaming 60 year-olds waiving AARP cards and hoping for one last glimpse of The Beatles!
