The Beatles at Shea Stadium – I saw them standing there
IT was 50 years ago today that Nigel saw the band play. Leamington businessman Nigel Robinson recalls attending arguably the most famous single pop concert in history.
FIFTY years ago on Saturday (August 15) history was made when the Beatles played the most famous concert of its era – and Beatlemania was at its height.
August 15 1965 at Shea Stadium, home of the New York Mets, saw a new level of mass hysteria, and gave birth to the modern day music concert.
And among the crowd of 60,000 plus – were two Warwick schoolboys there to witness it.
Nigel Robinson and David Treadaway were Warwick School sixth formers enjoying their summer holiday in the States when they managed to get tickets for the concert that set new records in attendance and the greatest gross in the history of entertainment.
“It was incredibly exciting,” said Nigel, now a director of Newsline Public Relations in Leamington. “Beatlemania was at its peak in the States, where only the year before in March 1964 the Beatles had an incredible 12 singles in the US top 100 – including all of the top 5!”
The Fab Four had arrived in New York and on the night on the concert they were taken first by helicopter and then by an armoured truck to the stadium, where 2,000 police and security guards had been drafted in.
Source: Leamington Observer
