Five times when it wasn’t much fun being a Beatle
Being a Beatle was the best — except for when it wasn't. Ron Howard’s new documentary Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years (now on Hulu; expands to additional theaters Friday; out Nov. 18 on Blu-ray/DVD) captures the exhilarating highs of Beatlemania, while being fairly frank about the mortifying lows.
A few of the latter that were shared with USA TODAY:
1: Strangers were constantly in their hair. Literally.
“There were always people like this as we went into the gate,” says Ringo Starr, crooking his fingers through a pretend chain-link fence. In Wales, “I remember it so well,” one determined fan resolutely grabbed hold of the drummer’s shaggy locks. The crowds in Washington were even bolder. At a reception at the British ambassador’s house in 1964, a woman wielding a pair of scissors famously helped herself to a lock of Starr’s hair. “And we thought, ‘No, no, NO,’ " says Paul McCartney. “We thought it would be quite a cool crowd,” he adds. “But they weren’t cool at all.”
2: Sonically, Shea Stadium was one of the most frustrating venues of their career. So they played there again the next summer. Not that they recall their encore performance in 1966. When asked about the second Shea show during interviews for The Beatles Anthology documentary, Starr says he blanked: “We played it twice??!!” “Then (the filmmakers) went to George (Harrison) and said, ‘And the second time you played Shea …’ And George said, ‘We played it twice??!!’ "
By: Kim Willis
Source: USA Today
