The summer of '64. The height of Beatlemania. Since they first broke in
February on Ed Sullivan's show, every record they put out seemed to be
better than the one before.
Sure, the kids went crazy before -- over Frank Sinatra and Elvis
Presley --
but there was nothing like this. Something new was in the air.
We didn't really know it, but the culture was beginning to tip.
And the
Beatles were doing the pushing.
It was Aug. 27, 1964, and the Beatles came to town playing the
Cincinnati
Gardens as part of their first-ever 24-city U.
S. tour. Forty years
later,
those among the 13,326 at the concert all have the same memory: They
didn't
hear much.
"When they came on stage everyone started screaming. And I could hear
nothing. It was just my ears ringing," remembered Stephanie Gentile,
now a
guidance counselor at Clark Montessori.
"I remember thinking, 'I want
to
hear them. I didn't come here to hear other people scream.' It was just
deafening.
"
"The only time you could hear them was for a few seconds when they got
done
playing and Paul or John would say something," remembers Dennis Walker
of
Anderson Township, now better known as "Wildman" Walker on WEBN-FM. "As
soon
as they hit the guitar chord, you couldn't hear a thing."
The concert was promoted by a team of five disc jockeys at WSAI-AM
(then
1360) that included "Good Guy" Dusty Rhodes, now Hamilton Country's
auditor
(and still the morning host on oldies WSAI-AM, now at 1530).
Tickets were priced at $5.75, $4.75 and $3.
75.
"I remember the tickets were outrageously expensive," said Gentile, who
used
her baby-sitting money.
"It took a lot of nerve to ask my dad to spend that kind of money for a
concert," said Jaqui Brum, who would go on to become for many years the
general manager at WEBN.
"I wanted this so bad," said Bonnie Brinkley of Cold Spring, Ky., an
employee at Sofa Express in Florence. "I had to talk my mom into
sending a
check in the mail for the tickets, because I was out in Milford and
couldn't
get to a ticket office.
When those came I was ecstatic."
The Beatles' arrival at Lunken airport was a well-kept secret, and they
were
whisked away to the Gardens where they held one of the news conferences
that
by then had become classic acts of Beatles wit and put-downs.
Some of the exchanges, according to coverage in The Post:
• Don't you think the Rolling Stones and the Dave Clark 5 try to look
like
you?
"You're very unobservant," said George. "Does everyone in America
look
like you?"
• What happens when your bubble bursts?
"Count our money," said Ringo.
• What would it take to replace the Beatles? "The bomb," said John.
Rhodes got to meet and chat with all the Beatles that night backstage.
He
was with his wife, JoAnn, then eight months pregnant with their first
child.
"Ringo said, 'I hope it's a boy .
.. or a girl.
' That sticks in my mind
every
time I think of that night," said Rhodes. "They were so darn easy to
talk to
and pleasant. Just amused by it all, really having a good time.
"
The Beatles would not spend the night in Cincinnati, flying out after
the
show, much to the disappointment of the Vernon Manor, which had donated
a
floor of suites to the Fab Four. (They would stay at the venerable
hotel in
1966, spending the night after their Crosley Field concert was rained
out
and rescheduled a day later).
At the Gardens, some 6,000 mostly teenage girls had gathered early.
They
were told doors would open at 6 p.m.; they opened 45 minutes late.
In
what
would be an eerie harbinger of the 1979 Who concert tragedy at
Riverfront
Coliseum, The Post reported that police were concerned about a crush of
people at the front door. A glass door was broken, and two suffered
minor
cuts.
There were no other problems -- except the heat -- estimated at well
over
100 degrees in the building that August night.
"It was unbearable," remembers Walker. "My mom thought the place was
air-conditioned. She said you ought to wear a sweater.
You know how
moms are
when you are 14. I think I had it on when I went in. It didn't come
home
with me.
"
The Beatles played for 31 minutes -- 12 songs -- and earned $25,000.
And it
was over.
"I remember it as overwhelming.
Flashbulbs, screams and no music. I was
home
in time to see Al Schottelkotte's coverage on TV, and it was all
flashbulbs,
screams and no music," said Brum. "I think the noise was so loud it
obliterates any chance of having much of a memory of it.
"
Gentile, who lived nearby in Golf Manor, walked back to the Gardens the
next
day, a fact her brother recently reminded her of. She had forgotten.
"I don't know what I was looking for, maybe a souvenir," said Gentile,
who
still has her original Beatles records she bought at the time.
Or maybe she was just looking for reassurance that she had indeed been
there. In a teenage mind, maybe she just wanted to be close again to
her
heroes, or hoped somehow to hear the music that was wiped out by the
screams.
"Who thinks at that age?
" said Brum. "It's now fun to think I was
there. It
wasn't about going to a historical event, it was about going to see
Ringo.
I
was a Ringo girl."
"It was important to us at the time. We were crazed and happy," said
Brinkley.
"When they came back (in '66) I said, 'Nah, been there, done
that.'"
Also in the audience that night was Dale Stevens, for 42 years the
entertainment writer for The Post. He often said that show at thc
Cincinnati
Gardens was the most memorable of his career.
Dale, who died in 1997, wrote a piece in 1984 on the 20th anniversary
of
that concert. In his two-decade retrospective, Stevens summed up that
night
this way:
"If it had been anyone but the Beatles, the memories might have faded
away
by now. But that's the point.
The Beatles did change our lives.
"And, for one brief, shining moment, Cincinnati was a rock and roll
Camelot -- only one more stop along the way for the Beatles, but, for
Cincinnati, a fragment of a time in history when a rock group could
change
the world. I'm glad I was there.
"
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