August 29, 1966, 60 years ago: The Beatles conclude their World Tour at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, home of Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants. It turns out to be the last time all four of them would play together before a paying audience.
The tour had been tough. It had started in June 24, in Munich, West Germany, followed by shows the next night in Essen, then in Hamburg, where they had "grown up as a band" in 1960. They went to the Far East, doing 5 shows in 3 days at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, which had become a shrine for the sport of sumo wrestling, and it led to objections that they were soiling an ancient art. The art may have been ancient, but the venue was less than 2 years old, having been built for the 1964 Olympics. As it turned out, it has become better-known for its rock concerts.
Then came 2 shows at Rizal Memorial Stadium in Manila on July 4. The night before, exhausted, the band had failed to show up for social engagement held by Imelda Marcos, wife of President Ferdinand Marcos. This led to a backlash from the President's supporters, and the group left the country under a cloud. It would be years before anybody realized how bad both halves of the Marcos couple were.
On July 29, while they were resting up for their upcoming U.S. tour, Datebook magazine published Maureen Cleave's interview with John Lennon, in which he said, "We're more popular than Jesus now." Within a week, as only Americans can do, Americans overreacted: Radio stations from coast to coast, North to South were banning Beatle records, and "Beatle bonfires" were being held.
On August 11, The Beatles arrived in Chicago, and, for the only time in his life, Lennon ate crow, and offered an apology. The tour began: August 12, 2 shows at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago; August 13, 2 shows at the Detroit Red Wings' Olympia Stadium; August 14, Cleveland Municipal Stadium, home of the Indians and the Browns; August 15, District of Columbia Stadium, then the home of the teams named the Washington Senators and the Washington Redskins, a stadium later renamed for Robert F. Kennedy; August 16, John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia; August 17, 2 shows at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, the only building they played on all 3 of their North American tours; and August 18, Suffolk Downs, a horse-racing track in Boston.
Then came August 19, and 2 shows at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis. This was the Bible Belt, and lots of people were still pretty mad. The Ku Klux Klan had nailed a Beatles LP to a wooden cross and burned it. During the evening show, someone threw a firecracker onto the stage. No one was hit, but when it went off, lots of people thought it was a gunshot. All 3 of the others turned to John after the firecracker, to make sure he was all right. He was.
August 20 had been scheduled for Crosley Field, the ballpark of the Cincinnati Reds, but it rained. That gave the Fab Four a little rest, but it forced an unusual doubleheader: Two concerts in two cities in one day. They did an afternoon show at Crosley, then flew to St. Louis to play at the new Busch Memorial Stadium.
So many music historians have ripped Elvis Presley's manager, Tom Parker, for running his man ragged, and praised Beatles manager Brian Epstein for "taking care of" "the boys." With many things, he did. But he was every bit as determined to make as much money from his charges as he could as Parker was, and their 3 North American tours were always inches away from disaster. And, despite the aural damp squib that was their concert at Shea Stadium in New York the year before, people still hadn't yet figured out how to stage a rock concert in a baseball park or a football stadium.
And John kept talking. At a press conference in New York before their return to Shea on August 23, John he said the Vietnam War was "wrong." He was right, but America wasn't ready to hear that yet. The year before, they had filled all 55,000 available seats at the Flushing Meadow stadium. This time, "only" 40,000 showed up, with pickets both for and against them facing off against each other.
It was their most stressful tour ever, and George Harrison said he'd rather leave the band than ever go on another tour. They decided they wouldn't, and would be only a recording band from that point onward. George agreed to stay -- for now.
After Shea, it was off to the West coast. They did 2 shows at the Seattle Center Coliseum on August 25. After 2 days of rest, they played the 1st concert at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. The next concerts there wouldn't be until 1975, with 2 by Elton John; and the next ones until 1984, with The Jacksons' Victory Tour.
The last concert on the tour was at Candlestick Park in San Francisco on August 29. They were supported by The Ronettes, The Cyrkle, Bobby Hebb, and The Remains. (The Cyrkle were also managed by Epstein's company.) Attendance: 25,000, meaning about 17,000 empty seats. (In 1971, the NFL's San Francisco 49ers joined baseball's San Francisco Giants there, leading to an expansion to 69,000 seats.)
Candlestick Park in the 1960s
As usual, they roared through their set, unable to hear themselves over the all the screaming, playing 11 songs in 33 minutes:
1. John Lennon singing Chuck Berry's "Rock and Roll Music."
2. Paul McCartney singing his song "She's a Woman."
3. George Harrison singing his song "If I Needed Someone." (Every show would have a George song and a Ringo song, so "the other guys" wouldn't feel left out.)
4. Paul singing his song "Day Tripper."
5. John singing his song "Baby's In Black."
6. John singing his song "I Feel Fine."
7. Paul singing his song "Yesterday."
8. Ringo Starr singing Paul's song "I Wanna Be Your Man."
9. John singing his song "Nowhere Man."
10. Paul singing his song "Paperback Writer."
11. And the last song anybody would ever pay to hear The Beatles sing live, Paul singing Little Richard's song "Long Tall Sally."
Reviews of the concert were not good, with the San Francisco Chronicle headlining "Bedlam at the Ball Park." Ringo was 26 years old, John 25, Paul 24 and George 23, so age wasn't an issue. But they they were physically, mentally and emotionally wiped-out, and the sound system was insufficient, and the overall atmosphere wasn't what it had been, even a year earlier, when it could still be adequately described as "Beatlemania."
They had already released Rubber Soul, and had just released Revolver on August 5. They were weary. They were examining their feelings, and expressing them on their recordings. These were no longer "The Lovable Mop Tops" who had dazzled people on The Ed Sullivan Show: When John sang "Help!" the year before, he wasn't just singing a song as a character in a story, he was being himself.
As I said, they were between 23 and 26 years old. A kid who was 13 when they first arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport on February 7, 1964 would now be only 15. How many 15-year-olds were going to "get" the content of "Norwegian Wood," "She Said She Said" or "Tomorrow Never Knows"? Or even understand the grownup love stories of "Girl" and "For No One"?
A lot of people couldn't handle what the Liverpudlians were offering in 1966, and that was one reason NBC made the TV show The Monkees, to fill that void.
The gap would grow. The next time anyone saw The Beatles in public, they weren't wearing black suits. They were wearing the wild colors of Swinging London and San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury. They had mustaches. And they had recorded "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever," and released promotional films (what would later be called "music videos") for them, in which they looked... weird. "Tomorrow Never Knows," indeed.
While they'd decided not to tour again, even the four of them did not know that the Candlestick Park show would be their last paying concert together, ever. There would be the concert on the roof of the building where Apple Records was based, on January 30, 1969. And each of them would have notable solo gigs, with Paul and Ringo living and continuing to tour into the 2020s. But The Beatles would never have another official concert.
If, in the Summer of 1966, you had told people that the last official concert by The Beatles would be 11 years before the last one by Elvis Presley, few of them would have believed you. But it turned out to be true.
Built in 1960, Candlestick Park hosted its last event on August 14, 2014. It was a concert by 72-year-old former Beatle Paul McCartney. A crowd of 53,477 attended, and it got great reviews. The stadium's demolition began 3 months later.
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