The Beatles Boxed Set (33 page)

            While
preparing their instruments, Ringo was introduced. He quickly bowed at the
screaming crowd behind him before returning to preparing his drum kit. It took
a while before they were able to begin performing, starting with George’s
number,
Roll Over Beethoven.
Ringo sang
I Wanna Be Your Man
while
drumming in the middle of the whole performance.

The Beatles’ first American concert at
Washington Coliseum, February 11, 1964

            The
Beatles performed in front of eight thousand screaming and hysterical fans,
some who even looked as if a current of electricity was coursing through their
bodies. You could easily read the lips of die-hard fans who kept saying “Oh, my
God” and who looked on the verge of fainting. The cameras panned through the
audience, and the reactions in their faces (as though they were seeing gods)
were testimony that the Beatles had, indeed, invaded the US music scene.

            The
Beatles returned to New York for their performance at Carnegie Hall. As their
limousines couldn’t get through the waiting crowds, they boarded a taxi which
took them to Plaza Hotel. They showered and changed clothes and were smuggled
out of the hotel through the kitchens.

            The
concert tickets had gone on sale on January 27 and had sold out the following
day. Backstage, the band was given a gold disc by Swan Records for selling a
million copies of
She Loves You.
More than two thousand saw the group’s
shows at the Carnegie Hall.

            After
the show, New York impresario Sid Bernstein offered Epstein $25,000 and a
$5,000 donation to the British Cancer Fund for a follow-up concert the
following week at the Madison Square Garden. Epstein said, “Let’s leave this
for the next time,” but the Beatles never performed at the Madison Square
Garden nor did they return to Carnegie Hall.

            Following
their two shows at the Carnegie Hall, the Beatles flew to Miami and appeared
for the second time on
The Ed Sullivan Show
which was broadcast live
from the Napoleon Ballroom of the Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach. For this
appearance, the group attracted 70 million viewers.

            The
Beatles returned in the UK on February 22, 1964 and were met by about ten
thousand fans.

The
Beatles’ success was unstoppable. The following month after their first US
visit,
I Want to Hold Your Hand
had just been replaced from its top
position on the charts by
She Loves You
. Capitol Records then revealed
that the Beatles’ fourth single,
Can’t Buy Me Love
, had sales of 940,225
in its first day. By the end of March, the single was already at number one,
followed by
Twist and Shout, She Loves You, I Want to Hold Your Hand
and
Please Please Me
, at positions two to five, with five other Beatles
songs in the Hot 100. No other acts had held the top five spots simultaneously.

            The
sales of Beatles singles in the US reached $17.5 million up to 1990.

In May 1964, the Beatles’
Love Me Do
was the number
one single on the charts, with fourteen other singles in the Hot 100 for one
particular week.  The following month, the Beatles had 20 songs on the US
charts within just six months.

After the success of their singles, it was inevitable for
the Beatles management to venture into film. The Beatles began working on a
cheaply made rock ‘n’ roll movie that was to be
A Hard Day’s Night
,
where the boys acted as themselves in a mockumentary for six weeks. The film
was produced to extend the Beatle brand into the movie business and serve as a
vehicle for the accompanying album of original songs. But then, the movie
became a cultural landmark.

The Beatles dodging hordes of fans on
their film
A Hard Day’s Night

           
A
Hard Day’s Night
was a version of the Beatles as popular pop stars. The
movie showed the boys riding on trains, running away from wailing fans, jumping
into limos and staying in luxurious hotel suites. The film showed that at one
point, the preparations were so lengthy that Ringo left and read a book. Paul’s
grandfather convinced him that he should be outside experiencing life. Ringo
heeded the old man’s advice and went to a pub for a drink, then walked
alongside a canal and rode a bicycle along a railway platform. His band mates,
meanwhile, were trying to find him so that they could begin their concert.
Finally, Ringo arrived and the concert went ahead as planned.

             The
film premiered in London on July 6, 1964 – the eve of Ringo’s 24
^th
birthday – and became an international success, with the accompanying album
released just a few days later. The film garnered mostly positive reviews and
was number one on Rotten Tomatoes’ list of the Top Ten Certified Fresh Musicals
and number one on the Best Reviewed Movies of All Time.

            Ringo
was credited for the film’s strange title. In an interview with disc jockey
Dave Hull, Ringo said. “We went to do a job, and we’d worked all day and we
happened to work all night. I came up still thinking it was day I suppose, and
I said, ‘It’s been a hard day…’ and I looked around and saw it was dark so I
said, ‘…night!’ So we came to
A Hard Day’s Night
.”

            Paul
agreed with this, saying in a 1994 interview for
The Beatles Anthology
,
“The title was Ringo’s. We’d almost finished making the film, and this fun bit
arrived that we’d known about before, which was naming the film. So we were
sitting around at Twickenham studios having a little brain-storming session…
and we said, ‘Well, there was something Ringo said the other day.’ Ringo would
do these little malapropisms, he would say things slightly wrong, like people
do, but his were always wonderful, very lyrical… they were sort of magic even
though he was just getting it wrong. And he said after a concert, ‘Phew, it’s
been a hard day’s night.’”

            This
malapropism, along with others, was what the Beatles called Ringoisms. John and
Paul thought that these were perfect to turn into songs, which they did.
Ringo’s verbal misstep was also responsible for the title of
Tomorrow Never
Knows
. When the Beatles returned to London after their first American
visit, they were interviewed by David Coleman for the BBC Television. The
interview went as follows:

Interviewer:
Now Ringo, I hear you were manhandled at the Embassy Ball. Is this right?

Ringo: Not
really. Someone just cut a bit of my hair, you see.

Interviewer:
Let’s have a look. You seem to have got plenty left.

Ringo: (turns
his head) Can you see the difference? It’s longer this side.

Interviewer:
What happened exactly?

Ringo: I don’t
know. I was just talking, having an interview (exaggerated voice. Just like I
am NOW!

(John and
Paul lifted locks of his hair, pretending to cut it)

Ringo: I was
talking away and I looked ‘round, and there about 400 people just smiling. So,
you know – what can you say?

John: What
can you say?

Ringo:
Tomorrow never knows.

            Ringo
was also responsible for the title of
Eight Days a Week
, though some
people contested it and claimed that Ringo was just repeating a phrase he heard
from an overworked chauffer.

            By
the first week of April 1964, the Beatles held 12 positions on the
Billboard
Hot 100, including the top five.

            In
June and July, the Beatles embarked on an international tour, with 37 shows in
27 days in Denmark, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. The
day before they were to leave for the first date in Denmark, Ringo collapsed
during a morning photo session for the
Saturday Evening Post
in Barnes,
London. He was running a 102-degree fever and tonsillitis and was rushed to the
hospital.

            Ringo
had to be admitted to the hospital for a few days and was required to
recuperate at home. The Beatles couldn’t postpone their tours, so Ringo was
temporarily replaced by session drummer Jimmie Nicol for the Sweden, Denmark,
the Netherlands, Hong Kong and Adelaide concert dates. George Martin chose
Nicol as he was already familiar with Beatles numbers while drumming on a
recording session for the album
Beatlemania
.

            George
didn’t like the idea of replacing Ringo and refused to go on the tour without
their drummer. But Epstein and Martin convinced him to begin the tour.

            While
recuperating, Ringo received a telegram from Paul which read: “Didn’t think we
could miss you so much. Get well soon.” Ringo was discharged from the hospital
on June 11 and rejoined the group in Melbourne on June 15. He eventually had
his tonsils removed during the band’s Christmas holiday period later in 1964.
Years later, he admitted that he thought he would be permanently replaced
during his illness.

            The
Beatles returned in America in August 1964 for a month-long tour. The group
performed at thirty concerts in twenty-three cities, starting in San Francisco
and ending in New York. They received $1,933 for each minute at the Hollywood
Bowl, a staggering amount that time.

The Beatles performing in Las Vegas,
August 20, 1964

            Each
concert attracted between ten and twenty thousand enthusiastic fans, whose screams
and shouts left the music semi-audible. This American tour earned the Beatles more
than a million dollars in ticket sales, plus it spurred a further increase in
record sales and Beatle memorabilia.

After
the band’s final concert in New York, New York journalist Al Aronowitz arranged
for Bob Dylan to visit the Beatles in their hotel room before they return to
the UK. When Dylan arrived, Mal Evans was sent to get some cheap wine. As they
waited for his return, Dylan asked the Beatles if they wanted to smoke. The
whole event was recorded in Peter Brown’s Beatles biography.

            Epstein
and his boys were apprehensive as they looked at each other. Epstein finally
said, “We’ve never smoked marijuana before.”

            Which
surprised Dylan. “But what about your song? The one about getting high?”