The Beatles at Shea Stadium, 50 Years Ago Today

Shea Stadium, 15th August 1965

If music is in your heart then surely, The Beatles must run through your veins. I’ve heard the odd idiot (yes, I said it) try and impress with the bold statement “I don’t like the Beatles”, and every time, I can’t help but shudder. I guess it’s forgivable for someone of my generation to, say, not be that acquainted with their discography, or call Hey Jude their best track, but to say you don’t like The Beatles is comparable to saying you don’t like… eating. You may not like eating spicy food, or you might prefer eating beans on toast to champagne and caviar, but no one could say they don’t like eating.  

The Beatles and Beatlemania not only changed the music industry but all of popular culture from 1960 onwards. On this day, we celebrate a very important anniversary in Beatles history. The stadium tour is a norm in today’s music scene; in London alone venues like Wembley and Twickenham play host to some of the world’s biggest stars when out of the sports season. But, it was fifty years ago today (see what I did there?) on 15^th August 1965, that the Beatles drew a record-breaking crowd of 55,600 fans to Shea Stadium in New York City, and hosted the first concert held in a venue of this size.

The following year a documentary of the concert, produced by Ed Sullivan, was released, which showcased extraordinary scenes unlike any that had been seen before. There are looks of astonishment across the Fab Four’s faces as Sullivan announces them onto the grass. Although perfectly clear in the film, in reality their playing was completely drowned out by the sound of screaming and crying, and the on-site security were fully occupied throughout the concert with the removal of fainting teenage girls, or those attempting to run out onto the stage. Cousin Brucie, the announcer on the night, put it quite simply in a recent interview. He said:

“This was a sociological experience. This was an amazing event, more than just the music. The music played almost a secondary role to what was going to happen at that particular moment in time.”

Here are some fun facts about the Shea Stadium show:

1. Seats in the upper deck cost $5.10 – that’s about $40/£25 in today’s money

2. In the audience that night were a young Meryl Streep as well as Linda Eastman and Barbara Bach (the future Mrs McCartney and Mrs Starr)

3. 25%-30% of the crowd that evening were male!

4. The concert made $304,000 in box office takings, of which the Beatles got $160,000

As with every concert on this tour, the set list was comprised of 12 songs. But which track should I choose to cover as tribute to the anniversary? One in particular stood out to me, a favourite of mine which, I can’t believe, only made it to No. 42 in Rolling Stone’s top 100 Beatles songs.

I Feel Fine was released in November 1964 and appears on the album Beatles ’65. Its opening note is the first example of feedback being used on a record, made by McCartney pressing his bass up to the amp. Just think how a single note, who knows, maybe even a mistake initially, paved the way for acts of the future to coin the technique (Townshend, Hendrix and Cobain, to name just a few…)

Lennon wrote the majority of the song, and came up with the riff whilst recording Eight Days A Week at Abbey Road. This riff is very close to Bobby Parker’s Watch Your Step, and although it has been suggested that Lennon may have stolen it, the inclusion of Parker’s track on the 2004 John Lennon’s Jukebox compilation ironically made Watch Your Step a hit in the UK. Bobby Parker isn’t the only influence on I Feel Fine. Lennon admitted that the inspiration for the drum piece came from Ray Charles’ What I’d Say, and you can hear this coming through on the vocals too. 

But all these factors aside, I Feel Fine still has all the elements to make a perfect Beatles' classic: Sweet, catchy rhymes, a poppy, toe-tapping rhythm and a simple, effective harmony. The trinity!