The Beatles: Her First Concert

She probably couldn't know it at the time, but Midway's Jane Pacific was kissed by stardust in August 1964. She was gifted a memory that only a fortunate few can ever share with the rest of us because, well, you know, that's how stardust memories work.

She was an eyewitness to Beatlemania. 

Jane Pacific with her Beatles ticket stubs.

 "I think I was around eight years old," said Jane, who grew up in Lakeview Terrace, Calif. "My parents got us tickets to see The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl.

"It was my first concert. 

"Yes, I was young, but I was still old enough to know what was happening," said Jane. "My older sisters, Karen and Kris, were into The Beatles, and my mom and dad both loved The Beatles. And so did I. I knew all the songs and loved them." 

The first of three Hollywood Bowl concerts – now iconic in the lush lore of Beatlemania – came only seven months after The Beatles first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in February. That televised moment changed everything about the way we listen to popular music, from stage to studio.

Ironically, Jane couldn't hear a note The Beatles sang that night at the Hollywood Bowl. The nonstop decibel-splitting shouts of teenage girls drowned out The Beatles and their hopelessly inadequate amplifiers. Basically, Jane and her family attended a screamfest. Welcome to Beatlemania.

"I don't think we did any screaming," said Jane, whose family had pretty decent seats about halfway up from the stage. "I know my sisters said they didn't scream like that. But, yeah, the screaming is what I remember most. Not being able to hear the music as well as I wanted to. The whole concert was like that.

"I remember standing on the top of my seat because everybody else around me was standing, too." 

What the fans who were interested in the music missed was a setlist that went like this:

1. Twist and Shout

2. You Can't Do That

3. All My Loving

4. She Loves You

5. Things We Said Today

6. Roll Over Beethoven

7. Can't Buy Me Love

8.  If I Fell

9. I Want to Hold Your Hand

10. Boys

11. A Hard Day's Night

12. Long Tall Sally

And that was it. Twelve songs, clocking in at just under a half hour. G'night, folks, and thank you very mooch. Tickets went for $4.50 then, which comes out to about $46.00 per ticket today. Is that good enough for a half hour of The Beatles? That, my friends, is a rhetorical question. It needs no answer.

Anyway, Jane's family enjoyed the experience so much, they did it again. This time, they went to see The Beatles perform two years later at Dodger Stadium on August 28, 1966. By now, Beatlemania was shedding some of its luster. Beatle John Lennon had alienated a number of fans a few weeks earlier when he famously suggested the Beatles were bigger than Jesus Christ, and they weren't selling out some of their venues.

 But, you know. They were still The Beatles.

"What I remember about this concert is that from our seats it seemed like they were very far away and small," said Jane. 

Baseball stadiums can do that to you. The setlist at Dodger Stadium included:

1. Rock and Roll Music

2. She's A Woman

3. If I Needed Someone

4. Day Tripper

5. Baby's in Black

6. I Feel Fine

7. Yesterday

8. I Wanna Be Your Man

9. Nowhere Man

10. Paperback Writer

11. Long Tall Sally

"Sometimes I can't remember which concert was which in my memory," said Jane. "But it was pretty much the same thing at Dodger Stadium: screaming girls and a lot of people standing around me. I do remember my parents taking my hand and dragging me through all the people to leave."

As it turned out, Jane was witness to another bit of history. The Beatles performed at San Francisco's Candlestick Park the next night, and then they immediately gave up touring to focus solely on studio work. So she saw the next-to-the-last Beatles concert ever (the Savile Row rooftop doesn't count).

"Is that right?" said Jane. "I didn't know that."

Soooo, 60 years later, Jane can produce several ticket stubs from both the Hollywood Bowl and Dodger Stadium concerts. Who's smart enough to think to do that?

"When I was a small girl I had a little box that I kept stuff in," said Jane. "That's where I kept my tickets. I even have my Mom's ticket stub. It's just a box full of keepsakes that I'll never let go.

"They have real emotional value for me."

 Indeed. How could it be otherwise?

Note: https://youtu.be/KqOsmUthz74 is a link to The Beatles 1964 Hollywood Bowl performance. When Jane's husband, John, showed the video link to her several weeks ago, she said it brought tears to her eyes. And why not? Stardust memories, you know.