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Health & Fitness

THE BEATLES ROCKED MY WORLD (AND YOURS)

I was too young to go see them on my own. But I did see them at Atlantic City: August 30, 1964. My grandparents-- saints, I now realize-- took me and my sister there for a weekend and, thanks to my aunt and uncle who wrote for The Daily News, we were gifted with tickets to see the Beatles in concert.             

Lest you find the excursion bizarre, let me point out that my grandparents actually knew who the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were. My sister and I were Ed Sullivan Show regulars: every Sunday night we planted ourselves in front of the (black and white) TV to see the new British imports. Grandma and Grandpa were visiting during the first Stones appearance. The camera zoomed in on the Mick lips, and Grandma couldn’t help herself. She said, in Italian, so we wouldn’t be offended, “Que faccia brute!” Roughly translated: “What an ugly face!” Yet she knew we were infatuated with this stuff, so off to Atlantic City we went. 

I remember nothing else about Atlantic City-- not even the diving horse that everybody used to talk about-- except the Almighty Presence of The Fab Four (which, by the way no one called them, except the media who invented that tag). The whole city, it seemed to me, was crackling with anticipation, and everyone under 20 was in a state of nervous hysteria. 

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I had my first attack as we were crossing a hotel parking lot on the way to the car to head for the concert, when about 100 yards ahead of us, four skinny guys with long hair and dark clothes rushed down a fire escape from the back of the hotel. My adrenaline shot into the stratosphere and I let out a shriek that scared even me. I stunk at the 100-yard-dash in grade school, but I may have broken the world’s record this time, as I bolted after them. They disappeared down an alley, but not before I saw that some of them didn’t look exactly like who they were supposed to be. Decoys. Back then, this was a common ploy to throw Beatlemaniacs off the trail so the real guys wouldn’t get their hair torn out. I stopped running, but my heart kept going. It took a while to calm down and explain to Grandma and Grandpa. 

On our way to the concert, as we stopped at a red light, an ambulance pulled up alongside us and waited. I thought that was weird; weren’t ambulances supposed to race through the streets with sirens yowling and red lights flashing? I tried to peer inside the ambulance’s side window, but it was dark. I saw a shadowy figure or two, who seemed to be trying to see through their side of the window. I thought they might be the Beatles, because I knew they resorted to all kinds of tricks to get to and from their shows. 

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The next day the newspapers reported all about the Beatles’ visit to Atlantic City-- really, what else was there to report? They had been transported to the concert by a fish truck. So close! I’m sure I screamed at that, too. 

I remember the concert, but not the set list. Somebody on the internet says it was 12 songs, opened with “Twist and Shout,” closed with “Long Tall Sally,” and was a half hour long. I thought I was in infinite heaven. 

My grandmother said she couldn’t hear a word of the music because of all the screaming, and was amazed that I knew all the words and was singing along. All 18,000 people were standing on their seats bouncing, except for my grandparents-- thank god. I would’ve been pretty freaked out if they had. Grandma, toting her ever-present movie camera, filmed the show. (Those were the days before concert Security could pound you into a pulp for this). To this day, I have that film of the Beatles in concert. I don’t intend to sell it, ever, you won't see it on YouTube, and I won’t tell you where it is; even if you burgle my apartment, you won’t find it.

After the show, my grandparents let us stand in the street until 1 a.m. with the mob staked out in front of the Beatles' hotel. Every time someone on the top floor moved near a window, the shrieks were deafening. It must be a Beatle!! It could've been some sleep-deprived guest wondering when the hell the teenaged lunatics were going home, but not in my mind! 

I saw the Beatles at Shea Stadium, too. (This time, a friend’s mother drove us.) I sat with my high school friends way up in the nosebleed seats and screamed at George (“my” Beatle, before I switched to John). I would like to state for the record that I never cried, like some of the other girls did. I also knew that George looked up and saw me waving at him. After all, there were only 55,000 people in the audience. 

Many years later, when I was a publicist in the music industry, I met another Beatles fan, also a publicist: the girl who had made the heroic dash across the infield, egged on by Paul, and nearly got to the stage, until security nabbed her and carried her out of the stadium, thus depriving her of seeing that now-historic event. I think this may have been the origin of the epithet, “Pigs!” 

After the Beatles, the flood. I must’ve seen every British import--sometimes several at once, like in the package tours emceed by obnoxious New York DJ Murray the K, who had the nerve to call himself "The Fifth Beatle." There were 5 shows a day. At a daytime show at the RKO theatre in New York, I saw Cream, The Who, and a bunch of other bands I barely remember, like The Blues Project and Mandala. I did love Wilson Pickett, Mitch Ryder, and the Rascals (who rehearsed in my friend’s basement in Pelham Manor because her brother was their road manager), who, apparently, also appeared, but they were eclipsed. 

Ginger Baker was the scariest drummer I’d ever seen, I think Eric Clapton wore a very Mod paisley shirt, Keith Moon played like no one else before or since, then flung his drumsticks into the audience, and the band bludgeoned and blew up everything onstage, leaving behind smoking wreckage. I was again in infinite heaven-- though I was puzzled as to why anyone would destroy their instruments, and the internet says they played only three songs each. 

In the decades since, I’ve seen many Clapton and Who shows; as far as I’m concerned, The Who were the best band in the world. (And yes, I saw several Stones concerts, too.) The Beatles were the pioneers, though, and you never forget your first time. When I hear "Twist and Shout," I still scream a little.

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