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The Beatles’ recorded music impacted the landscape and changed things forever. Despite the screaming and short sets, their concerts were so good they made teenage fans pee their pants from excitement. Their producer didn’t wet himself, but George Martin screamed like a teenage girl at one of The Beatles’ most impactful concerts. 

George Martin said ‘it was all too easy to scream’ at one groundbreaking Beatles concert

Beatlemania was a curious phenomenon. The name suggests it spread like an inferno, but that’s not entirely accurate.

The Beatles’ popularity in England was a steady climb. A top-20 single in late 1962 (“Love Me Do”) preceded a top-5 song in January 1963 (“Please Please Me”) that came before their first No. 1 hit (“From Me to You”) in April 1963. That set the stage for their debut album, Please Please Me, to hit No. 1 and spend 30 weeks on top. (Their next seven records also topped the charts).

In the United States, success came overnight. Few Americans knew about The Beatles before 1964. The Beatles’ career changed after they played on The Ed Sullivan Show in February of that year. The rest is history.

On Feb. 11, 1964, two days after millions of people watched their Sullivan performance, The Beatles played their first proper U.S. concert. Their show at the Washington Coliseum in Washington, D.C., was their first American concert in front of paying fans in an arena. They also played in the round, a groundbreaking concept for the group at that time.

The atmosphere and The Beatles’ performance was electric enough that Martin and his wife couldn’t help screaming like the teenage fans around him (via 150 Glimpses of The Beatles):

“Judy and I just found ourselves standing up and screaming along with the rest. This may sound daft, but it was exactly the same screaming that adults do at football matches. It was all too easy to scream, to be swept up in that tremendous current of buoyant happiness and exhilaration.”

George martin

Before the show started, Martin and a teenage fan sitting next to him talked about the Fab Four. She asked him if he liked the band. He responded in his reserved and understated English way, “Yes, I do, rather.” 

Martin didn’t anticipate being swept up in the moment. Yet when The Beatles started playing “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” he couldn’t help but scream along with the rest of the fans in the D.C. crowd. Surrounded by rabid teenage fans, Martin, by then in his late 30s, became one of them when the Fab Four launched into their show.

The Beatles played less than 50 concert dates in the United States

The Beatles winning over U.S. fans took their popularity to a new level and paved the way for the British invasion. Yet between early 1964 and the late summer of 1966, the Fab Four had less than 50 concert dates in the U.S. A band that played live thousands of times performed only a handful of shows in North America.

The Beatles’ 1966 tour saw them face trouble nearly wherever they went. They received death threats, battled nasty weather at open-air summer shows, and had all of The Philippines turn against them.

After John Lennon said The Beatles were more popular than Jesus, many people in the South boycotted the band. They felt their lives were in danger. A so-called fan at one show set off a firecracker while the band performed. The group thought someone might have been shot.

Playing live became more and more stressful. It’s no wonder the band decided to stop touring. And not a moment too soon. Paul McCartney said a 1966 concert in St. Louis, a rain-soaked quagmire, was The Beatles’ worst gig ever.

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