The Beatles (114 page)

“Well,” Lewis responded portentously, “I can assure you we’re going to have a lot of trouble if you don’t.”

The trouble started, as Vic predicted it would, later that morning. First, Brian took an agitated call from the British ambassador to the Philippines, urging him to keep the palace appointment “
in the interest of diplomacy
.” Brian remained adamant. Moreover, he refused to wake the Beatles to tell
them they had to go to a party. “It’s just not feasible,” he said, washing his hands of the matter.

Unbeknownst to him, Paul and Neil had already gone out earlier that morning to take pictures in and around the city. The rest of the Beatles slept until about one o’clock, had their breakfast, and played a rousing if fairly standard afternoon show to an enthusiastic audience of 35,000 Filipinos under a blistering sun. As always, there was no cultural barrier when it came to Beatlemania. Back at the hotel before the evening show, Tony Barrow and Peter Brown gathered in Brian’s suite to have drinks and watch coverage of the concert on the evening news. Every channel featured scenes depicting delirious local teenagers swooning over the Beatles. But on Channel 5, one of the country’s major networks, an extended report ran footage from the palace in which friends of the First Family and their children filed into the grand reception room earlier that day. “The children began to arrive at ten,” said the accompanying voice-over. “They waited until after two…. At noon, the First Lady decided properly and wisely not to wait any longer. ‘The children have all the time in the world, but we are busy,’ she said. The place cards for the Beatles at the lunch table were removed.” The spin they put on it implied that the Beatles in all their rudeness had insulted President and Mrs. Marcos.

Brian faced Peter Brown, wearing a look of feline infallibility. “
Well, we were fucking
right
not to do that,” he said. But Tony Barrow, who understood the implications, shook his head grimly. This wasn’t Los Angeles or even France, where the government shrugged off such proper nonsense. A misunderstanding like this, he thought, could flare up into a touchy international incident. To run damage control, he persuaded Brian to issue a hastily written apology and arranged for a Channel 5 remote crew to tape an interview in the hotel suite. Brian, for his part, was contrite. In his most gracious, upper-crust voice, he professed complete ignorance about the invitation and praised the Marcoses, but when it was broadcast an hour later, Brian’s appearance was obliterated by static interference. “That’s when we started to get very nervous,” recalls Peter Brown.

The uneasiness turned to panic after the evening show at the stadium. Suddenly the Beatles’ police escort disappeared, and when their car pulled up to the hotel gates, it was clear they had been locked out. As if on cue, several dozen “
organized troublemakers
” converged on the car, banging on the windows and rocking the vehicles. Menacing epithets were shouted in several languages. Leaning forward, Vic Lewis instructed the driver: “
Drive on! Go through the people
and smash the gates down!” Which is
exactly what they did. As the cars raced to the entrance, doors flew open and everyone ran into the hotel—two steps ahead of the angry throng.

A short while later an official visited the hotel, demanding payment of local taxes. Lewis brought out the contract to verify that the promoter, Ramon Ramos, was responsible for the tax, but it was brushed aside. “
Your fee is taxed
as earnings regardless of any other contracts,” he was told. Until all taxes were paid, no one from the Beatles party would be permitted to leave the country.

When he left, Lewis found Tony Barrow and said, “We’ve got to get out of here—now.” He went straight to the phone and called the front desk for help with collecting the luggage but was told none would be forthcoming. “The whole hotel is going on strike,” the manager told him. “They think you’ve insulted President Marcos.”

The Beatles had already gotten a taste of the situation. The hotel staff refused to provide them with room service and their phones had been shut off. Paul had seen the newspaper headlines—
BEATLES SNUB PRESIDENT
—but didn’t connect the events. The story went on to claim that the Beatles had “spit in the eyes of the first family,” which, of course, wasn’t true—no one had told
them
anything about the visit. “
Oh, dear!” he thought
. “We’ll just say we’re sorry.” But then “
things started to get really weird
,” as Ringo recalled. He and John were sitting around in their bathrobes, watching television, when one of the roadies stalked in. “Come on! Get out of bed! Get packed—we’re getting out of here.”

Vic Lewis, Tony Barrow, and the two roadies grabbed most of the baggage and headed to the airport. They hoped to have everything settled for a quick getaway by the time the Beatles arrived. Everyone else met in Brian’s suite and began to make their way downstairs. The main elevators had been turned off, which meant taking the service lift. But even though the halls were dark, they weren’t empty. “
The passageway was lined
with hotel staff who shouted at us in Spanish and English,” recalls Peter Brown, trailing a few steps behind the Beatles. “It was very, very frightening.” When they arrived downstairs, it was impossible to check out. The lobby was deserted; there was no security in sight. Even their cars were gone.

“
Nobody would give us a ride
,” George recalled. “There was nothing available.” Someone—no one is sure who—managed to corral a Town Car and all seven of them squeezed inside. But the airport route was sabotaged. Soldiers, stationed at intersections, kept directing the car onto ramps that led in circles. Finally they took a back road and arrived half an hour later. Rushing inside the airport, they discovered that the terminal was totally
deserted. “
The atmosphere was scary
,” Tony Barrow remembered, “as if a bomb was due to go off.” Even the individual airline desks were empty. The second the Beatles hit the escalators, the electricity was mysteriously shut off. “
We were shitting ourselves
by this time,” says Peter Brown. “There was no one to help us, no one to tell us where to go.”

Barrow and Vic Lewis, who had gone ahead of the party, were carrying everyone’s flight tickets and documents. “Meanwhile,” recalls Vic Lewis, “I was in with KLM, pleading for them to hold the flight, which was coming in from Seoul and going on to Delhi.” The passengers had already boarded the aircraft; the plane was an hour late for takeoff. “I rang through to the pilot and was pleading with him. ‘
Please,
hold on. This is going to be an international situation.
Please…
’ ”

“Mr. Lewis, I want to help,” the captain told him, “but if we don’t leave soon, we won’t get our clearance.”

“Please…”

Outside, Lewis and Barrow could see their worst nightmare unfold. On the tarmac, a crowd of two hundred Filipino men, many in military uniform, had gathered, waving pistols or clutching sawed-off clubs. “
I didn’t fancy the chances
of the Beatles, without police protection, getting through to the airport unhurt,” Barrow recalled. Lewis confirmed his fears. “
I really felt the boys could be killed
,” he says.

The Beatles, meanwhile, made their way through the terminal as little bands of the demonstrators appeared. “
We were all carrying amplifiers
and suitcases,” George remembered, “nobody was helping us to do anything—but the mania was going on, with people trying to grab us, and other people trying to hit us.” Check-in lasted forever, it seemed. Eventually everyone was herded into KLM’s departure lounge, a double-story glass-enclosed room with a mezzanine, where “
an abusive crowd and police
with guns had also gathered.”

It was impossible to tell the MPs from the thugs. Customs officials indiscriminately shoved bodies from one side of the room to the other. “Get over there!” they ordered the Beatles, following it with a hard hand to their backs. Of course, once they stumbled to the other side of the room, another cop would shove them back again. “No! Get over there!” It was like a game of Ping-Pong, a vicious game, using the Beatles and their mates as equipment. According to Ringo, “
they started spitting
at us, spitting
on
us.” It was complete chaos.

“
When they started on us
at the airport, I was petrified,” John recalled. One of the policemen got in his face and yelled: “
You treat like ordinary passenger!
Ordinary passenger!” It occurred to John that ordinary passengers didn’t get kicked, but knowing what was good for him, he kept his mouth shut. Instead, he and the rest of the Beatles darted toward a group of nuns and monks huddled by an alcove, hoping that would discourage the thugs. Meanwhile, Mal fell and was kicked repeatedly in the ribs, along with Alf Bicknell, who was severely beaten.

After about fifteen minutes everyone was allowed to run across the tarmac to the plane. “I was the last to go,” recalls Vic Lewis, “and I remember putting a hand on my back, thinking that’s where the bullet was going to hit.” The terrified Beatles climbed the stairs into the cabin. It was hot, well over ninety degrees, and they were dripping with perspiration—but relieved. Then two Philippine military officers stiffly came aboard. Scanning the passengers, they announced: “Mr. Barrow and Mr. Evans, we need you to come back into the departure office.” The cabin went silent. Tony, sitting in the back of the first-class compartment, grimaced. Mal struggled to his feet and walked unsteadily toward the exit. As he passed George Harrison, he stopped and tearfully whispered, “Tell Lil I love her.”

Tony and Mal were detained for another half an hour. In a typical bureaucratic snafu, their papers hadn’t been processed with the others when they arrived from Tokyo; their passports hadn’t been stamped. After they handed over their passports, duly stamped, they were free to leave.

Once the plane was safely in the air, the Beatles were unusually subdued. Sitting across the aisle from one another, sweating in the painfully sticky cabin, they calmed themselves, smoking cigarettes against the tension, while the anger and resentment that had been simmering over the past few days finally boiled over. The boys quickly developed a need to lay blame for the debacle. It “
was Brian’s cock-up
,” they decided. He’d obviously handled that invitation business badly, either ignoring it or misleading the authorities—or
them.
Whatever the reasons, it mustn’t ever happen again, they agreed. Even if it meant having someone double-check his arrangements.

Brian, stewing quietly a row in front of the Beatles, couldn’t help but overhear the intensity of their complaints. And they were right, after all; he was their manager and ultimately responsible for their welfare. But to hear them go on like that, expressing their dissatisfaction with him, was brutal. Agonizing, he clutched the armrests with both hands and stared out the window. Peter Brown, who was in the seat next to him, noticed that Brian was “
seizing with tension
, and it was not just the Philippines.” Then, a little after five o’clock, when the pillow of thick clouds absorbed the last rays of sunlight, Vic Lewis leaned across Brown and gently shook
Brian’s shoulder. “I’m sorry this happened,” he said. Brian took no notice of the agent; he was already on the edge. Brown shook his head ominously and said, “Another time, Vic.” But Lewis refused to take the hint. “No, you don’t understand,” he insisted, “it shouldn’t have happened like this. But I hope you got the money.” Several times throughout the ostensible apology, Brian muttered to Brown through clenched teeth: “Get him away from me,
get him away!
”
Lewis was concerned
—and rightly so—about a paper bag containing the box-office receipts, roughly $17,000 in cash, that were due the Beatles from the Manilla dates. “Go away, Vic,” Brown said, pushing Lewis’s hand away. Lewis stared murderously at Brown, deciding whether to hit him. All this trouble was
their
fault, he fumed; the least they could do was account for the money. Finally, Brian blew a gasket.
“You turn to me at a time like this and talk about—money?”
he screamed. A spray of saliva splattered Lewis’s cheek. That had done it. Vic reached for Brian’s collar; Brian tried to slap his hand away. Before anyone landed a punch, Neil Aspinall was out of his seat and between the two men.

It was finally clear: touring was a nightmare, it wasn’t about performing anymore. “
It was just sort of a freak show
,” John complained. “The Beatles
were
the show and the music had nothing to do with it.”

From the moment they landed in India, so George could buy a decent sitar, the Beatles discussed among themselves the feasibility of not touring. Ever. “
Who fucking needs this?
” was an oft-heard lament. They were tired of simply going through the motions, tired of acting like the “
four waxwork dummies
” John thought promoters could “send out… [to] satisfy the crowds.” George had already intimated as much to a reporter back in June. “I’ve increasingly become aware that there are other things in life than being a Beatle,” he observed. “
I prefer to be out of the public eye
anyway.” And after Shea, John had never hid his contempt for stadiums filled with screaming thirteen-year-old girls. Now there was impetus to take a harder stand. “
And they decided then and there
,” Neil recalled, “that they weren’t going to do America the next year.”